A member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces was killed and two others injured in a shooting attack on Wednesday (June 14th) at an army shooting range in Gifu, in the center of the Japanese archipelago, according to a report by local media .
The government had just confirmed a first provisional assessment of three wounded. According to local police interviewed by Agence France-Presse, the alleged perpetrator of the shooting, who was arrested, is an 18-year-old young man.
Violent crime is rare in Japan, but several attacks have shocked the country in the past year, including the July 2022 shooting assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an election campaign meeting. Last April, current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was the target of an explosive device thrown, also during a campaign event, but escaped unscathed.
Security was tightened following the incidents, and several thousand police were deployed when Japan hosted the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima last month. Last month, police also arrested a man accused of killing four people, including two police officers, in a stabbing and shooting attack in Nagano, west of Tokyo.