Five years on, Munich remembers victims of 2016 mass shooting

German officials have held a memorial service to remember the victims of a 2016 mass shooting in Munich.

Nine people were killed and dozens of others injured when a gunman opened fire at a shopping centre in the Bavarian city.

The 18-year-old suspect killed himself after being surrounded by police. Most of the young victims of the attack had foreign roots.

It was not until October 2019 that German authorities identified the shooting as a "politically motivated" hate crime against refugees.

The victims of the racist attack have been commemorated since 2017 by the "For You" memorial on Hanauer Straße.

City authorities, including mayor Mayor Dieter Reiter and the Bavarian state leader Markus Söder, gathered at the memorial on Thursday.

The July 2016 shooting in Munich took place exactly five years after a far-right extremist killed 77 people in terrorist attacks in Norway.

Reports have found that the 18-year-old gunman in Germany had "talked a lot about" the Norwegian attacker and was inspired by his views.

Although the gunman's family came from Iran, he was born and raised in Munich and identified as an "Aryan" in online messaging forums.

Since the shooting, Germany has vowed to tackle the rise of far-right extremism and hate speech through various laws, but the issue remains central to debate ahead of September's federal elections.