The woman, believed to be a long-time resident in the Swiss capital who ran a restaurant in the city, was killed at 2am on Wednesday on Winkelriedstrasse near St. Mark’s church, police said.

She died as a result of stab wounds according to the findings of the University of Bern’s Institute of Legal Medicine, police said in a statement on Thursday.

Investigators are still searching for the attacker.

In a statement, police said a formal identification of the victim has not been concluded but she is believed to be a 34-year-old French citizen who has been living in Switzerland for some time.

The attack appears to have been preceded by a dispute in an apartment at 44 Winkelriedstrasse, the statement said.

The stabbing weapon, not described, was found nearby, police said.

The Berner Zeitung reported online that the woman was living with her Spanish partner at the apartment in the northern part of Bern.

Together they owned Il Padrino, a restaurant on Bern’s Belpstrasse, the newspaper said.

Police said they were called to the victim’s workplace on Monday about a civil matter between the woman and her partner over property theft.

Officers subsequently appeared at the woman’s apartment in Tuesday following a dispute between the couple but the man was not there when police arrived.

Meanwhile, a 25year-old Swiss woman in Basel faces charges after stabbing her 21-year-old boyfriend, also Swiss, with a sharp object on Thursday night.

The incident occurred around 7pm in an apartment on the Hebelstrasse, Blick reported online.

The woman alerted emergency services and the man was rushed to hospital for surgery, the newspaper said.