Horror in Marbella nightclub: Gunman shoots revellers after fight in VIP section

18 July 2022, 09:03 | Updated: 18 July 2022, 12:14

Several people have been shot after a gunman opened fire at a nightclub in Marbella.

According to local reports, at least seven people were shot at Opium Marbella in the small hours of this morning.

An unidentified gunman is said to have opened fire after an ‘altercation’.

Footage shared online shows a fight breaking out among revellers in the VIP section, before a shooter took out his gun, causing a huge stampede as partygoers desperately fled the venue.

Read more: Recreational drug users will have passports confiscated and face nightclub bans

Police sources said the gunman was Dutch and one of the victims was an Irishman who was shot in the chest.

The gunman was stabbed in the head and the torso and is in serious condition in hospital.

One local resident told local news outlet El Confidential, “Suddenly I heard the four shots. I looked out because from the beginning I knew that these were not fireworks like the ones that had been launched on other nights.

“I saw many people running and leaving the premises so I called the police.”

An anonymous witness said a gunman opened fire randomly into a crowd after the altercation turned violent with knives being drawn.

A British expat who was among the revellers said: "There was an initial problem in the VIP area which the bouncers sorted and led to one person being taken away.

"The shooting occurred during a second incident about ten minutes later.

"They were swinging around those massive bottles of Belvedere Vodka and the bouncers charged back to try to sort it out and that's when the shooting started.

"I was with my husband and he just flung himself on top of me because at one point the gunman seemed to be shooting out into the crowd.

"There was a real mad panic and everyone just rang for the exits. It was all very confusing".

According to Spanish site OK Diario, the nephew of the King of Spain was at the club on the night of the shooting.

Froilán de Marichalar was at the club celebrating his birthday, it was reported.

He is the son of Elena de Borbón, King Felipe’s sister. It is unclear if he was still there at the time of the shooting.

Influencer Kelly van Der Minne, who appeared in the country’s version of Love Island, was present at the shooting and she said she was next to a woman who got shot.

She said she lay on the floor for 10 minutes before fleeing the club.

“A woman next to us was shot. She was hit in the buttock. This is just the worst thing that could happen,” she said in a video on social media.

“We lay on the ground terrified for ten minutes.”

Van der Minne, followed by 100,000 fans on Instagram, was unharmed. “We left as quickly as we could,” she said.

Unconfirmed reports suggest a woman has been killed however police have not confirmed any deaths.

Police rushed to the nightclub, with an eyewitness reporting 18 police vehicles at the site.

Three ambulances also attended the scene, the eyewitness said.

DJ Black Coffee, the resident DJ at the Opium Nightclub last night at the time of the shooting has posted on his Instagram that he hopes everyone got home safe.

Police confirmed in a tweet there had been a shooting at the Opium nightclub.

They said the suspected gunman was in hospital with serious knife injures and that four others had been shot after an “argument” at the venue.