After the death of a 32-year-old in the Huckelriede district of Bremen on Tuesday evening, the police are investigating a homicide: the man is said to have been shot during an argument. Given previous incidents in the area, there is suspicion that a dispute between rival clans may have escalated.

Bremen: Eyewitness reports shots fired

FOCUS online spoke to an eyewitness who witnessed the shooting on Wednesday morning. He does not want to give his name publicly. According to his observation, the situation must have gotten worse quickly: When he got home around 7:30 p.m., everything was still quiet. He had only been shopping at the nearby kiosk for a few minutes when he noticed the argument while crossing the street. “There was a fight 10 to 15 meters away from me,” says the resident. In some cases the events shifted onto the road despite traffic. Another ten to 20 people watched the event from a distance. “And then three shots were fired a few seconds apart,” said the resident.

He then quickly went back to a side street to look for cover so as not to get caught between the fronts. He feared a ricochet. But with the shots the situation virtually disappeared. “They disappeared quickly and then it was quiet,” says the man. He then went to the kiosk because he felt the situation was safe. “I’m not the target here either,” said the eyewitness, who believes the shooting was a limited conflict.

Residents are seeing increasing crime

Another resident speaks of two shots he heard. He doesn’t know anything about the background to the dispute. But his observation is clear: “It’s getting worse and worse here. It didn’t used to be like that,” he says. It is mainly the bachelors (what does he mean by that?) who get into problems.

Kurds in particular run kiosks and snack bars along Kornstrasse in Bremen’s Huckelriede district. “Free Rojava” is written on the window of an empty building not far from the crime scene. This refers to the Kurdish-administered region in northern and eastern Syria. In recent years, the street has repeatedly been linked to clan crime. Residents speak of open crime. “They sell drugs endlessly here,” says one woman.

Clans: Huckelriede always takes center stage

There had recently been several violent clashes in the area. First Beginning of March There were shootings in the early evening that left two people injured, one of whom was in mortal danger. In the August 2025 A 20-year-old café visitor was injured in the district when two men got out of an SUV and beat him up. The suspects were later caught. When asked, neither the police nor the public prosecutor’s office wanted to comment on whether there was a connection between the incidents. It is also unclear who committed the violence this time. “I had the impression that the Kurds were attacked,” says the eyewitness.

There are also residents Incidents from 2020/21 present when a conflict between rival extended families escalated. The Weser-Kurier reports on several acts of violence in which clans were involved. The police and the Interior Senate felt compelled to hold a press conference in Huckelriede at which measures against clan crime were presented. Bremen, along with Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia, has for years been one of the hotspots for family ties, whose roots usually lie in the Arab culture, for example in Lebanon.