A seven-year-old girl suffered life-threatening injuries in a drive-by shooting outside a Catholic church in London on Saturday.
A twelve-year-old girl and four women were also injured in the attack on a crowd leaving a Requiem Mass at St Aloysius’s Church in Euston.
Police said that suspects had fired a shotgun into the crowd from a moving vehicle.
More than 300 mourners were attending the Requiem for Sara Sanchez and her mother, Fresia Calderon, who had died within a month of each other in November.
The parish priest, Fr Jeremy Trood, had celebrated the Mass, and said that the congregation had gone outside to release doves when he heard “a very strange, long and prolonged noise”.
“I remember the screams and shots, and the people who were making their way out of the church all coming back in,” he told the BBC. “There was confusion as people were getting away from the windows and doors.”
Ms Calderon had died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism after disembarking a flight from Colombia. Her 20-year-old daughter, Ms Sanchez, who had been suffering from leukaemia for three years, died weeks later.
In a statement following the attack, Superintendent Jack Rowlands said that the seven-year-old injured in the shooting was in a “stable but life-threatening condition” while one of the four women hurt had “sustained life-changing injuries”.
Police reported that a 22-year-old man was arrested in Barnet in relation to the attack on Sunday afternoon.
Fr Trood told Sky News: “There are no words that can describe what happened and I can’t imagine why anybody could possibly do such a thing.
“There were hundreds of people in the church coming out. It was pandemonium.”
He said that some of those who sheltered in the church remained too scared to leave the building for some time after the police had said that it was safe to do so.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, issued a message on Monday condemning the attack.
“Please continue to keep all involved in this terrible incident in your prayers, especially the young girl whose injuries are reported to be serious,” he said.
“I am most grateful to Fr Jeremy Trood for the manner in which he has handled this most difficult and tragic incident, in which the Church was used as a shelter and a place of recovery for many who were present at that time.
“I extend my sympathy and support to the family and friends who came together to pray for the souls of their loved ones who had died and who have been confronted with an outrageous act of violence leaving some injured and all in distress.”
Saturday’s attack came amid a series of stabbings over the weekend in the capital, where there were 109 homicides in 2022.
It is also follows the death of Elle Edwards in December, who was killed by gunshots fired indiscriminately into a crowd outside a pub on the Wirral on Christmas Eve.
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