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Five shot in campus attack in Swedish city of Örebro | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
Students held indoors at education campus where shooting took place, with attacker believed to be among injured | |
At least five people, including the suspected gunman, have been shot and injured, one seriously, in an attack in the southern Swedish city of Örebro, police have said, adding that the toll may increase as a search for more possible victims continues. | |
Police said the shooting, soon after 12.30 local time on Tuesday at a campus housing an adult education centre and other learning facilities, was being treated as “an attempted murder, arson and aggravated weapons offence”. | |
Roberto Eid Forest, the head of local police, said one of the injured people was “a person we suspect may be the assailant”, adding: “We can’t rule out other suspects and that’s something we are continuing to work on – why it happened and if there are other possible suspects.” | |
Eid Forest told a media conference there was no indication of motive and the situation was still “somewhat unclear”. “The operation is ongoing and that will undoubtedly become clearer,” he said. “But we are working very intensively.” | |
Swedish media, including the daily Aftonbladet and the broadcasters SVT and TV4, cited anonymous sources as saying several people had been killed and about 15 injured. Police said they could not comment on those reports. | |
Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister, described the attack as a “terrible act of violence” and a “very painful day for all of Sweden”. He said the government was in close contact with police and the operation was continuing. | |
Police needed to be allowed “the peace of mind they need to investigate what happened and how these horrific crimes could have occurred,” Kristersson added. Gunnar Strömmer, the justice minister, told SVT the attack was “very serious”. | |
Students were kept indoors at the campus and in nearby secondary schools for several hours and people urged to stay away from the area. No officers were hurt. Four injured people underwent surgery and one was in a serious condition, police said. | |
The county council said in an update that six people, five with gunshot wounds, had been treated at Örebro university hospital after what it described as “deadly violence at a school”. It said no children were among the wounded but gave no further information about their ages or the extent of their injuries. | |
One teacher, Lena Warenmark, told the broadcaster she had been confined to her study after hearing “gunshots very close”. She said she heard “probably 10 shots” in total, with a short pause between two bursts. | |
Warenmark said there had been unusually few students on campus as many had just gone home after sitting an exam. | |
Johannes Sjöberg, whose daughter is a student at the campus, told SVT he had been in touch by text message with her throughout, after she had arrived at the school about five minutes before the shooting started. | |
“She saw blood and the teachers were good at helping them, bringing them in and locking the door,” Sjöberg said. He said his daughter was now safe and was providing witness information to the police. | |
Andreas Sundling, 28, was among those who barricaded themselves inside the campus. “We heard three bangs and loud screams,” he told Expressen newspaper. All those who took shelter were evacuated by mid-afternoon, police said. | |
Ambulances, rescue services and police were at the scene in the city, about 125 miles (200km) west of Stockholm. | |
Campus Risbergska, where the shooting occurred, serves students mainly over the age of 20 but also offers primary and upper secondary school courses as well as classes in Swedish for immigrants, vocational training and programmes for people with disabilities. | |
School attacks are rare in Sweden but several serious incidents have taken place in recent years. In March 2022, an 18-year-old student stabbed two teachers to death at a high school in the southern city of Malmö. Two months earlier, a 16-year-old was arrested after wounding another student and a teacher with a knife at a school in the small town of Kristianstad. | |
In October 2015, three people were killed in a racially motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhättan. The sword-wielding assailant was later killed by police. | In October 2015, three people were killed in a racially motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhättan. The sword-wielding assailant was later killed by police. |