Robert Aaron Long

A white gunman was charged on March 17 with killing eight people at three Atlanta-area massage parlors in an attack that sent terror through the Asian American community, which has increasingly been targeted during the coronavirus pandemic.

Eight people, including at least six Asian women, have been killed in shootings at three different spas in the US state of Georgia.

Police said four people were killed at a massage parlour in a suburb north of Atlanta, and four more at two spas in the city itself.

South Korea later confirmed that four of the victims were of Korean descent.

Eight people - the majority believed to be women of Asian descent - were killed in shootings at three different spas in the U.S. state of Georgia on March 16 and a 21-year-old white man was in custody on suspicion of staging all three attacks, police said.