Finland, January 01: Six people are confirmed dead after a chilling New Year’s Eve shooting in Finland
The gunman, 43-year-old Ibrahim Shkupolli, rampaged through a suburban shopping mall in Finland, and later shot himself according to Finnish police.
Denmark’s TV2 reported Shkupolli had killed his ex-wife in a nearby apartment before then opening fire with a 9mm handgun in the Sello shopping centre in Espoo, west of the capital Helsinki.
Police confirmed five people were dead, four of them at the shopping centre.
Police commissioner Jyrky Kallio said a woman’s body had been found in a house in the city, and that police suspected Shkupolli of having killed her. He could not say if she had been shot before or after the mall rampage.
The daily Helsingin Sanomat said the woman was Shkupolli’s partner but Kallio declined to comment.
Several ambulances rushed to the scene in the suburb of Espoo, west of the capital Helsinki, after the shooting erupted in the Sello shopping centre.
Security services cordoned off the shopping centre and public transport services were rerouted.
Earlier, witnesses told Finland’s STT news agency they had seen at least one person lying on the ground following the shooting.
Around six shots were discharged, they said.
One or more people were shot at the Prisma grocery store. At least one employee was seen lying on the floor on the upper level of the centre. A man dressed in black was then seen walking towards the Citymarket grocery shop.
The shopping centre was evacuated and many police vehicles and ambulances were called to the scene.
One eyewitness, Kari Harjula, who was in a check-out queue at Citymarket, told YLE: “I started to hear a lot of shouting from the outer doors of Citymarket and Sello, telling everybody to get out.
“The customers and employees were wondering what was going on.
“Soon some police ran in with riot shields and serious expressions on their faces. They yelled at everybody to get out; that the shopping centre was being evacuated.
“The situation was chaotic; there were a lot of police inside and outside. From a layman’s point of view, it looked like a massive operation.”
Finland has one of the highest levels of gun ownership outside the US and has seen a number of shooting massacres.
In September 2008 a gunman went on the rampage at a college in the town of Kauhajoki, killing 10 people before killing himself.
In November 2007, an 18-year-old student killed opened fire at Jokela High School. The attack left seven students and a teacher dead. The gunman also killed himself in that incident.
The attacks have led to calls for gun ownership to be limited and much soul-searching among Finland’s five million people.
—Agencies