Poland’s police said on Saturday that six people were killed and around a dozen wounded after a gunman opened fire in the historic centre of its second city, Krakow.

A man drove a car onto Krakow’s Main Square and began shooting at random people, said police. Officers shot a suspect who is now in custody, they added.

“As a result of the incident, five people were killed and around a dozen others were wounded,” a Krakow police spokesman told AFP by phone.

“The perpetrator was shot by police” and was transported to a hospital, regional police said on X.

The gunman acted alone and is Polish, a police spokeswoman told AFP.

“There is one perpetrator; it is a Polish man,” she said by phone.

An AFP reporter on site noted ambulances and multiple police cars at the scene as police cordoned off the area — one of Poland’s landmark tourist hotspots popular with locals and foreign visitors.

“The police are investigating the background and all the circumstances of the attack,” said Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, calling it “a tragic shooting”.

“I saw a man shooting at people and walking around the square,” Annette, a woman in her sixties, told AFP. “It’s a tragedy for Krakow, we’ve never seen anything like this before,” she added.

The EU’s top diplomat called the incident a “tragedy”, adding that “Poland does not stand alone”.

“The tragic loss of life in the shooting in Krakow is a tragedy that will be felt far beyond Poland,” Kaja Kallas said on X. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families and the first responders.”

‘Dramatic events’

Deadly shootings are rare in Poland, a European Union and Nato member with 38 million people. But the country was on high alert following a series of stabbings in October, which Tusk denounced as a “cult of violence”.

Warsaw, a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has repeatedly warned of Russian sabotage and hybrid warfare on Polish soil, accusations rejected by Moscow.

The historic city of Krakow, in southern Poland, which was once Poland’s capital, attracts millions of tourists annually. In 2025, it was visited by 16.2 million people, the city said.

Poland’s conservative-nationalist president Karol Nawrocki said on X he was “in contact with the relevant authorities” and awaiting “a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding these dramatic events”.

“The safety of Poles is an absolute priority,” he added.