In the German town of Hanau, a longtime
immigrant destination with decades of coexistence between people of different origins, residents were left with the fear Thursday that their community was targeted after a gunman shot and killed nine people of foreign background.
Residents shook their heads at a level of violence that is rare in
Germany, and wondered at the degree of anti-foreigner hatred expressed by the attack in a place where Turks and ethnic
Kurds patronize the same hookah bars, and where members of both groups were among the victims along with people with roots in Bulgaria, Bosniaand Romania, according to media reports.
Among the dead was the owner of the Midnight Shisha Bar, an immigrant from
Turkey who worked and saved to buy his own business, along with the gaming kiosk next door.