A shooter opened fire at a high school in the Austrian city of Graz, authorities said Tuesday, killing nine people, including teenagers, in one of the worst rampages in the country’s history.
Austrian police confirmed the fatalities, raising the death toll from an earlier figure of eight. The country’s interior ministry told CNN that the victims included children between 14 and 18 years old. The perpetrator is also dead and the school has been secured, authorities added.
Several more people are seriously injured, police said.
Officers first responded to the reports of “several” suspected gunshots at the Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Dreierschützengasse school in the northwest of Graz at around 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET).
Several vehicles and a police helicopter were deployed to the site. The school was evacuated and the area was secured, with no further danger expected, the police said on social media.
Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker expressed horror at the shooting, writing on
“There are no words for the pain and grief,” he added.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, said: “It is difficult to bear when schools become places of death and violence.”
