TOKYO: Officials say former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been confirmed dead. He was reportedly shot during a speech on Friday in the city of Nara, near Kyoto.

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died after being shot during a campaign event in the city of Nara in Western Japan, public broadcaster NHK said.

“According to a senior LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) official, former prime minister Abe died at a hospital in Kashihara city, Nara region, where he was receiving medical treatment. He was 67,” NHK said.

Earlier, in a hastily organized press conference, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio – who has suspended his own campaigning activities – said doctors were “working very hard to save Mr Abe” and condemned the shooting as a “heinous, barbaric” act.

Eyewitnesses told NHK a first gun shot was heard when a man approached Abe from behind. No one appeared to be injured until a second gun shot was heard, at which point Abe fell to the ground.

Police said a 41-year-old man, Tetsuya Yamagami, was arrested immediately after the incident. He was said to have used a “home-made gun” and local media said he was a former member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force.

World leaders expressed shock over the attack, with the heads of governments of Britain, India and Australia – Japan’s key strategic partners – among the first to voice their sympathy for Abe’s family and the Japanese people.

Japan has had a history of high-profile assassinations or assassination attempts. Among them was the killing of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi by naval officers in 1932, in a failed coup.

Japan is a country with some of the strictest gun laws among leading economies and shootings are rare.