A shooting at the Aarauer Rave dance music event kills a woman of 22

Swiss police have arrested a 43-year-old man in connection with a shooting at the Aarauer Rave that killed one person and wounded five others. The annual techno event was held at the Schachen horse-racing track in Aarau, outside Zurich, and ran from Saturday afternoon into the following morning.

Around 3,500 people attended. Witnesses said gunfire broke out at about 2:30am as the event was winding down, and several people initially took the shots for fireworks, according to the BBC.

A young woman died at the scene. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni identified her as Maria Spinelli, a 22-year-old Italian national. Five more people, four men and one woman, all of them resident in Switzerland, were taken to hospital with injuries ranging from minor to severe, police said.

The shooting triggered a manhunt that crossed an international border, with police in Germany joining the search. Aargau authorities later said they had detained a suspect on strong suspicion of committing the crime, and that at this stage they assume a single perpetrator was involved. No motive has been disclosed.

Tekibo, a Swiss DJ who performed at the event, wrote on Instagram that the attack was absolutely heartbreaking and said he had lost someone close to him. The organisers posted on the event's website that they were devastated, writing that a rave should always be a place of joy and love.

For an outdoor dance event of this size, held on an open racecourse rather than a fenced arena, the incident raises questions about the security perimeter that will follow the criminal investigation. The Aarauer Rave is a fixture of the Swiss electronic calendar, and events of its type are tracked on the festival tracker.