Five people were shot and killed at a youth welfare facility in a northern German town on Monday, and police said they ​had detained two individuals, including the suspected shooter.

The motive ‌for the incident in Stade, close to the port city of Hamburg, was not immediately clear, a police spokesperson said.

The role of the second individual ​in custody remains unclear, a second police spokesperson told ​Reuters, adding that no other suspects were at large.

It is ⁠unclear how many people were injured, he said, adding that ​the dead were all adults.

Members of emergency services work at the scene of what the police said was a deadly shooting in the town of Stade, Germany, June 29. — REUTERS

Police believe the incident occurred at a ​youth welfare facility in Stade, a town of nearly 50,000 people to the west of Hamburg. Police cordoned off the area in a cobbled, tree-lined street ​with red brick homes, and forensic experts in white suits and ​plain clothes police were at the scene.

Read: One person wounded in German school shooting – police

After the incident, police warned residents to ‌steer ⁠clear of the area but later said there was no danger to the general population.

An eyewitness saw a man and a woman trying to flee the scene by car before being intercepted by ​police, the news ​site FOCUS online ⁠reported.

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Germany, especially when compared to the United States, but ​it has seen a spate of high-profile cases.

In ​2023, ⁠a gunman in Hamburg shot dead six people before killing himself at a Jehovah’s Witness worship hall. In 2016, an 18-year-old German-Iranian man ⁠who ​was obsessed with mass killings killed at ​least nine people in Munich.

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