Woman, 22, killed and five injured in shooting at Swiss rave

Manhunt under way after Italian dies from her injuries in the town of Aarau in the early hours of Sunday

A manhunt is under way in Switzerland after a 22-year-old woman was killed ⁠and five people were injured, ⁠some seriously, in a ​shooting at a rave in the northern town of Aarau, local police have said.

In the attack in the early hours of Sunday at a techno party at a covered horse-racing track, an Italian woman died from her injuries at the scene, authorities said. All those caught up in the shooting were residents of Switzerland and in their 20s.

Police appealed to the public for any images of the incident and said large areas of the town had been cordoned off in the search for one or more attackers.

“We have no definite information about who is behind ​the attack,” a police spokesperson, Bernhard Graser, told Reuters. “We don’t know if it’s one, if ‌it’s several people, if they are on ‌the run by vehicle or on foot.”

A 34-year-old witness ‌who asked for anonymity said he heard shots shortly after the music stopped at 2.30am on Sunday, which he initially mistook for fireworks.

Some took cover behind a DJ booth and one woman hid behind a refrigerator but was hit in the back by a bullet and bled to death despite efforts to revive her, he said.

“It’s just incredibly tragic. She was young,” he said. “That something like this could happen in Aarau, at a local event, ‌is simply unimaginable. I still can’t really process it.”

As a precaution police have increased their presence beyond the town – which is about 50km west of Zurich and 30km south of the German border – but Graser said there were indications the shooter or shooters were no longer in the immediate area.

“But we still have a lot of police here in the area, in the town of Aarau, in the whole state, to make sure that we could get them if they’re still ⁠around,” he said.

Reuters footage showed armed officers patrolling the area, police convoys moving through the ​streets and armoured vehicles parked near the ​crime scene.

Organisers of the annual rave said they ​were shocked and heartbroken ‌by the incident. “A rave should ​always be a place ​of joy and love, never a place where people are killed, injured, or left in fear,” they said.

Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe although violent shootings are rare and it approved tighter gun control rules in 2019.

The text of this article was amended on 30 August 2026. Aarau is west of Zurich rather than north, as an earlier version said.