A lone gunman armed with grenades opened fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the Belgian city of Liege, killing four people and himself.
Witnesses said the gunman, Nordine Amrani, 33, began his attack near a bus stop at Place Saint Lambert, a central shopping area and the site of the Christmas market and main courthouse - sending shoppers scattering to flee the bullets.
Amrani, freed from jail about a year ago after a convicton for possessing weapons and drug offences, ended it by shooting himself in the head with a handgun, the witnesses said.
"He had a bag. He got a grenade out of his bag. He threw the grenade at the bus stop. Then he had a Kalashnikov (rifle). He shot in all directions.
"Then everyone ran to try to save themselves. Then he got a revolver out and put a bullet in his head," one witness told RTBF radio.
The victims were a 15-year-old boy, who died at the scene, a 17-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman who died in hospital.
A 17-month-old baby was later announced to have died from wounds suffered during the attack.
A justice official said 123 had been wounded.
Liege's mayor, Willy Demeyer, said the two boys had been taking school exams nearby just before being caught in the attack.
Shattered glass and blood stains were scattered across Place Saint Lambert.
The square and surrounding roads remained closed on Tuesday evening, with police blocking access. The street of Amrani's former house in a quiet part of northern Liege was also sealed off.
Random killings of this kind are relatively rare events in Belgium. Most recently, in January 2009, a man stabbed to death two infants and a woman, and injured 13 at a nursery in the town of Dendermonde.
Liege, Belgium's fifth largest city and once dominated by the steel industry, last made grim headlines in January 2010 when a five-storey building collapsed, killing nine people.
Gaspard Grosjean, a journalist for a local Liege newspaper, was in the square moments after the attack.
