This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Five women were shot dead in an apparent Islamist attack on an Orthodox church in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday.

According to local press reports, an unidentified gunman fired at worshippers in the small town of Kizlyar in the mainly Muslim region. At least five other people, including two Russian police officers, were wounded in the attack, which took place after a service to mark the start of Russian Orthodox Lent.

“An unknown man opened fire with a hunting rifle in Kizlyar, fatally wounding four women,” the regional internal affairs ministry said in a statement. A fifth woman died of her injuries in hospital, the health ministry spokeswoman Zalina Mourtazalieva told Tass news agency.

The attacker was “eliminated” by police fire, the regional internal affairs ministry added. He was a local man in his early 20s, according to a local official quoted by the Interfax news agency.

The Russian RBK daily quoted an Orthodox priest as saying the attacker had opened fire on churchgoers following an afternoon service. “We had finished the mass and were beginning to leave the church. A bearded man ran towards the church shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and killed four people,” Father Pavel said. “He was carrying a rifle and a knife.”

Footage posted by Mash, a Telegram messaging app-based news channel, showed worshippers running from the scene of the attack.

Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, is one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia. Islamist rebels from Dagestan are known to have travelled to Syria to join Islamic State .

Isis declared it had established a affiliate in the North Caucasus in 2015. It has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on police in Dagestan in the past couple of years involving guns and explosives, as local security forces battle an Islamist insurgency.

Attacks on the republic’s minority Orthodox Christian community are rare.

Sunday’s shooting came a month before the 18 March presidential election that Vladimir Putin is almost guaranteed to win.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report