7-year-old girl, several others injured in drive-by shooting outside London Church

A seven-year-old girl was left with life-threatening injuries in a drive-by shooting on Saturday near a church in London where a funeral was taking place, British police said.

Five others, including another child, a 12-year-old girl, were also hurt in the incident.

Police said the seven-year-old girl had been taken to hospital and remained in a life-threatening condition after the shooting not far from Euston Train Station in North London. The 12-year-old girl was also taken to hospital with a minor leg injury but later discharged.

Mourners ran screaming from the scene outside a Roman Catholic Church in the capital as gunshots rang out.

“Initial enquiries suggest the shots were fired from a moving vehicle which was then driven away from the scene,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement as they launched an urgent appeal for witnesses.

The priest, who conducted the service, Father Jeremy Trood, told the PA news agency it had been a requiem mass for Sara Sanchez, 20, and her mother, who both died within a month of each other in November.

The younger woman had succumbed to leukaemia while her mother died after suffering a blood clot on arrival from Heathrow from Colombia, the MyLondon news website reported.

“I heard this almighty bang and I thought this was not normal, and the next minute everyone was screaming and shouting,” a neighbour told PA.

The three women hurt in the incident, near the busy Euston train station, were aged 41, 48, 54.

One of them had sustained potentially “life-changing” injuries, the Met statement said, adding that the lives of the other two were not in danger.

A witness told MyLondon the shots occurred as mourners, who had attended the mass, watched doves being released afterwards.

Police have launched an investigation into the matter.