The Atlanta-area shootings are the worst example of a recent wave of violence against Asians in America

• Six of the eight people killed in Tuesday's Atlanta-area shootings were Asian women.
• Authorities have not yet discussed a motive.
• But there is concern that the killings may be linked to a wave of violence against Asian Americans.

Three shootings in the Atlanta metro area Tuesday that left eight people dead - six of them Asian women - come amid growing concern about a surge in attacks against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.

The shootings took place in three massage parlors within about an hour of each other, with two of the locations across the street from each other. Law-enforcement authorities arrested a 21-year-old white man in connection with the shootings after a short car chase on Tuesday night.

Though the police have not identified a motive in the shootings, concerns are growing that they may be linked to a recent wave of violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. Many of those attacks appear to be connected to the fact that the novel coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, China.

In a Monday statement, the Stop AAPI Hate campaign group - which was formed to combat the rise in hate crimes among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders - described the killings as an "unspeakable tragedy" and highlighted them as part of a trend in violence against Asian Americans.

"The reported shootings of Asian American women on Tuesday in Atlanta is an unspeakable tragedy - for the families of the victims first and foremost, but also for the AAPI community - which has been reeling from high levels of racial discrimination," said the group.

"Few details have been released, including whether or not the shootings were related or motivated by hate. But right now there is a great deal of fear and pain in the Asian-American community that must be addressed," it added.

In a recent report, the group identified 3,795 reported hate incidents targeting Asian Americans since March 2020, when the pandemic began to rapidly spread across the US.

Tuesday's shootings come just days after President Joe Biden called on the hate crimes against Asian Americans to stop in an address to the nation, describing them as "un-American."

He said that Asian Americans had been "attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated" during the pandemic.

A February analysis released by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, also found that while there had been a 7% decline in reported hate crimes overall during the COVID-19 pandemic, those against Asian Americans had increased 150%.

It followed a report by the UN's special rapporteurs on racism and migrant rights last October which also found a sharp increase in reported hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic.

The authors of the report linked the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump to the surge in attacks and xenophobic incidents, with Trump in public statements repeatedly calling the coronavirus the "China virus" and the "kung flu."