A former student fatally shot nine people before taking his own life at a secondary school in Graz on Tuesday, marking the deadliest school shooting in Austria’s modern history.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said six of the victims were female and three were male, and that 12 people were also injured. He gave no further details to identify the victims, but Austrian media said most were pupils.
The motive for an attack that shocked the nation was not yet known. But police said they assumed the 21-year-old Austrian shooter, who was found dead in a bathroom, was operating alone when he entered the school with two guns and opened fire.
‘Dark Day In History’
“The rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said, calling it a “dark day in the history of our country”.
“There are no words for the pain and grief that we all – all of Austria – are feeling right now.”
Stocker travelled to Graz, where, at a press conference alongside other officials, including Karner, he announced three days of national mourning, with a minute’s silence to be held at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Wednesday.
Austrian newspaper Kronen-Zeitung said police had found a farewell note from the shooter during a search of his home. It did not say what was in the note, and police were not immediately available to comment.
The killings caused shock and consternation in Austria, a usually peaceful country unaccustomed to multiple fatalities of the kind that occurred in Graz, its second-biggest city.
More than 300 policemen were called to the scene after shots were heard around 10 a.m. at the school where pupils of 15 and above attend. Police and ambulances arrived within minutes, and authorities cordoned off the school. Relatives of the victims and pupils were being cared for, authorities said.
The Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper said in an unconfirmed report that the suspect had been a victim of bullying.
Armed with a pistol and shotgun, he opened fire on pupils in two classrooms, one of which had once been his own, it said.
‘Dark Hour’
Police said investigations into a possible motive were ongoing and that they could not yet provide any information.
“Extensive criminal investigations are still required,” a police spokesperson said.
Julia Ebner, an extremism expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think-tank, said the incident appeared to be the worst school shooting in Austria’s post-war history, describing such shootings as rare compared to some countries, including the United States.
“I am deeply shaken that young people were torn from their lives so abruptly,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one of a number of foreign leaders who expressed shock at the shooting, said in a message to Stocker. “We hope that their loved ones can find comfort in the company of their families and friends in this dark hour.”
Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 persons, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project.
Four people were killed and 22 injured when a convicted jihadist went on a shooting spree in the centre of Vienna in 2020. In November 1997, a 36-year-old mechanic shot dead six people in the town of Mauterndorf before killing himself.
(With inputs from Reuters)
