Charleston shooting church to reopen with thousands gathering for service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal

The building was handed over to church officials by police on Saturday afternoon

A view of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina (GETTY)

Thousands of people are expected to pour into the centre of Charleston on Sunday morning as the historic black church where nine people were killed is set to re-open for a religious service.

It will be the first service in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church since nine people were shot dead during a Bible study session last week.

"There are going to be a lot of people here," said a police officer on duty outside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church on Saturday evening. "You’d better get here early."

Church member Cassie Watson said the church would open at 8.30am for Sunday school and 9am for a service.

Ms Watson was one of more than a dozen people to enter the building after a cleaning crew had worked on it, the Associated Press said. Other congregation members also confirmed the church would open Sunday.

The announcement came as Charleston police said the church was no longer a "crime scene" and was being handed back to the church community.

The church is expecting a large turnout when it reopens on Sunday (Getty)

Churchgoer Harold Washington, 75, said he expected the church to host even more newcomers.

"We're gonna have people come by that we've never seen before and will probably never see again, and that's OK," he said. "It's a church of the Lord, you don't turn nobody down."

Shae Edros, 29, speaking after a multiracial group of women sang 'Amazing Grace' outside the church on Saturday afternoon, said: "I think just because of what people have gone through emotions are definitely heightened, not just in Charleston but with anyone going to church because it is such a sacred place, it is such a safe place."

Several events are planned throughout the city to show solidarity with the congregation.

Bells at more than a dozen churches throughout Charleston and elsewhere are expected to ring at 10am local time.

People are also planning to join hands and form a peace chain along a bridge connecting Charleston to one of its suburbs.

Authorities say the shooting at the church, which occurred on Wednesday night, was carried out by 21-year-old Dylann Roof.

Hundreds rallied in support of the nine people shot dead at Emanuel African Methodist Church (Getty)

In a photograph taken prior to the shooting Roof was pictured holding a Confederate flag, as well as displaying the flags of defeated white-supremacist governments in Africa.

Long a divisive symbol in the US, the Confederate flag was originally flown by the pro-slavery South during the 1861-65 American Civil War.

On Saturday a crowd rallied outside the South Carolina statehouse calling for the removal of the flag from the statehouse grounds.

The flag at the statehouse is controversial. An agreement among legislators in 2000 saw it moved from the Statehouse dome to a monument directly in front and it can only be lowered with approval of the full legislature.

As a consequence, when Nikki Haley, the South Carolina governor, ordered the state and US flags at the Statehouse to lowered to half-mast for nine days to honour the dead, the Confederate flag stayed raised.

Two prominent Republicans have joined the call for the flag to be removed.

Doug Brannon, a Republican state senator, said he would now introduce a bill to remove the flag entirely calling it "not just a symbol of hate ... [but] a symbol of pride in one's hatred".

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 presidential contender, expressed a similar view on Twitter.

(Additional reporting by agencies)