A seven-year-old girl is in a critical condition and five other people injured after a shooting following a requiem mass for a mother and daughter in London.
Mourners ran screaming from the scene outside a Catholic church in the city as gunshots rang out.
Met Police superintendent Jack Rowlands said officers were called to Phoenix Road at around 1.30pm where the memorial service was taking place.
He said: "They found multiple people with injuries caused by pellets from a shotgun. Four women, aged 21, 41, 48 and 54, were taken to central London hospitals.
"Thankfully their injuries were assessed as non-life threatening. The 48-year-old woman has sustained potentially life-changing injuries.
"Two children were also injured. A 12-year-old girl sustained a leg injury. She was treated at hospital before being discharged yesterday afternoon. She is expected to make a full recovery.
"A seven-year-old girl was more seriously injured. She remains in hospital in a stable but life-threatening condition, and our thoughts are with her and her family.
"We believe the suspects discharged a shotgun from a moving vehicle, which was a black Toyota C-HR, likely a 2019 model or similar."
The priest who conducted the service, Father Jeremy Trood, told the PA news agency it had been a requiem mass for Sara Sanchez, 20, and her mother, who both died within a month of each other in November.
The younger woman had succumbed to leukaemia while her mother died after suffering a blood clot on arrival from Heathrow from Colombia, the MyLondon news website reported.
"I heard this almighty bang and I thought this was not normal, and the next minute everyone was screaming and shouting," a neighbour told PA.
"Any shooting incident is unacceptable, but for multiple people, including two children, to be injured in a shooting in the middle of a Saturday afternoon is shocking," said the police Superintendent Ed Wells.
"An investigation into this dreadful attack is already well under way involving local officers and specialist detectives," he added.
A witness told MyLondon the shots were fired as mourners who had attended the mass watched doves being released afterwards.
Additional reporting AFP
