AARAU. A 22 year old woman was killed and five people injured, some seriously, when shots were fired at a techno rave attended by around 3,500 people in Aarau in the early hours of Sunday. The perpetrator remained at large on Sunday morning as a major police operation, backed by an army helicopter and German officers, spread across the region.
The shooting took place shortly after 2:30am at the Schachen horse racing track, where the annual “Aarau Rave” event was drawing to a close. Aargau cantonal police said the woman died at the scene. The injured, four men and a woman aged between 24 and 27, are in hospital with injuries ranging from minor to severe. All are Swiss residents.
Witnesses told Swiss media they initially mistook the gunfire for fireworks, until shouts of “everyone down” sent the crowd scrambling for cover, some hiding under the DJ booth. A video recorded near the scene and published by Blick captures what sounds like around ten shots. Police later gathered remaining partygoers in a nearby gymnasium.
“Possible motives and the exact circumstances of the incident remain unclear,” the cantonal police said in a statement, adding that the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators is unknown. A police spokesperson described the search as being in full swing and said officers were dealing with a “special situation”.
The response through the night was on a scale rarely seen in Switzerland. Alongside cantonal police and firefighters, the deployment included the Argus special intervention unit, several ambulance services, the canton’s disaster response element and an army Super Puma helicopter, which flight data showed circling the town in the early hours. Police in neighbouring Germany joined the search effort.
A wide area around the racecourse, the town’s swimming pool and its sports field remained cordoned off on Sunday morning, with the public urged to stay away from the Schachen district. Armed officers were positioned on motorways up to 30 kilometres from the scene, and police presence was increased beyond the town as a precaution.
Investigators have appealed to the public for help. Anyone with videos or photographs of the event is asked to share them with the police, and an information line has been set up for relatives and witnesses. The town’s public swimming pool will remain closed until further notice because of the ongoing operation.
Aarau, the capital of canton Aargau, lies about 46 kilometres west of Zurich and is home to around 22,000 people. The rave, in its seventh edition, is one of the town’s largest annual events, advertised as a techno party at the covered racetrack.
Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe, a legacy of its militia army, but shootings with multiple victims are rare. Voters approved tighter gun control rules in 2019, bringing Swiss law into line with European Union requirements. A mass shooting on this scale will inevitably reopen that political file.
For now, the questions are investigative rather than political: who fired into a crowd of thousands at 2:30 on a Sunday morning, where they went, and why. Police say they will communicate further as the manhunt develops. The town, meanwhile, wakes to armoured vehicles on its streets and a summer that has ended in the worst possible way.