Around 10 people have been killed in a shooting at an education centre in central Sweden on Tuesday, including the suspected assailant who was not known to police, police officials said.
“Around 10 people have been killed today,” Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest told reporters, adding that police could “not be more specific” about the number. “The suspected assailant is not known to police.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, a police cordon blocked off the area around Campus Risbergska, a secondary school for young adults in the town of Orebro, as AFP reporters saw some police cars and ambulances begin to leave the scene.
School attacks are relatively rare in Sweden, but the country has suffered shootings and bombings linked to gang violence that kill dozens of people each year.
Forest said police received the first reports of a school shooting at 12:33pm but could not specify how it unfolded nor whether it occurred inside or outside the school.
Two Campus Risbergska teachers, Miriam Jarlevall and Patrik Soderman, told newspaper Dagens Nyheter they heard gunfire in a hallway.
“Students came and said someone was shooting. Then we heard more shooting in the hallway. We didn’t go out, we hid in our offices,” they said.
“There were a lot of gunshots at first and then it was quiet for a half-hour and then it started again. We were lying under our desks, cowering.”
Some witnesses told Swedish media they heard what they believed to be automatic gunfire.
Swedish television channel TV4 meanwhile reported that police had raided the suspect’s home in Orebro late on Tuesday afternoon.
It said the suspect was around 35 years old and had a license to carry a weapon and no criminal record, but did not provide any details about his identity.
Police have not confirmed that information.
Students in several nearby schools as well as the one in question had been locked in for several hours “for safety reasons” before gradually being released, police said.
“It is a very painful day for all of Sweden,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X.
“My thoughts are also with all those whose normal school day was replaced with horror. Being confined to a classroom fearing for your own life is a nightmare that no one should have to experience.”
He said the government was “closely monitoring developments.”
