KRAKOW: Poland’s police said on Saturday six people were killed and around a dozen wounded after a gunman opened fire in the historic centre of its second city of 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, six people were killed and around a dozen others were wounded,” a Krakow police spokesman said. “The perpetrator was shot by police” and was transported to a hospital, regional police said on X.

A 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.

Officials say gunman in tactical gear fired indiscriminately into crowded tourist hub before being shot by police

“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, said. “It’s a tragedy for Krakow, we’ve never seen anything like this before,” she added.

Poland’s interior minister said the gunman was “fascinated by far-right ideologies”.

“Everything suggests that the perpetrator held very, very radical views. A number of weapons were found in the car he was driving,” Marcin Kierwinski said, adding that “everything suggests that he was fascinated by far-right ideologies”.

‘Cult of violence’

Deadly shootings are rare in Poland, a European Union and Nato member of 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 authorities” and awaiting “a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding these dramatic events”.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2026