Police say at least 10 people have been killed, including the suspected gunman, in a shooting at an education center in central Sweden.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristiansen described Tuesday’s attack on the Rysbergska school in Orebro, 200km (124 miles) west of the capital Stockholm, as “the worst mass shooting in Swedish history”.
Police said the male perpetrator was among the dead and that he was not previously known to them. There is no identifiable motive and he has confirmed that he believes it is working.
“It is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of what has happened today,” Christerson said at an evening news conference.
Police had previously warned that the death toll could rise as several people were injured.
Many of the injured have been taken to hospital and at least four are in critical condition.
Police said five people have already been shot and that the incident is being investigated as attempted murder, arson and a serious weapons offence.
Local media later began reporting that several people had died, before police said “10 people” had died, but that the death toll was “undetermined.”
They confirmed that there was no “terrorist” motive behind the attack.
Police were notified of the shooting at the Risborgska school, an adult education center, at 12:33 local time (11:44 GMT). The facility is located on a campus where other schools are located.
The centers are mainly attended by people who have not completed primary or secondary school.
Previously, students from several nearby schools had placed the devices “for security purposes.”
“We don’t need the public to do that,” Örebro police chief Roberto Ede Forrest warned.
The justice minister, who appeared with the prime minister on Tuesday evening, He expressed his condolences to those affected by the “tragedy” and assured that schools in the country would be safe to reopen on Wednesday.
“I have never seen such a large-scale school shooting,” Gu Strömer said.
Nearby hospitals have emptied their emergency rooms and intensive care units to free up space for patients, local media reported.
Five people injured in the shooting at Örebro University Hospital were being treated at the hospital. A sixth person, who was not shot, was being treated for “minor injuries,” it said.
There were no children among those being treated, the municipality of Örebro County said in an update.
Teacher Lina Värenmark told Swedish Public Radio that there had been about 10 shootings near her school.
Ali El Mokhad, an acquaintance of a person believed to have been studying at the school at the time of the attack, had come out of a local hospital to inquire about the situation at his institution.
“It’s really not that good,” Mr Mokhad decided to the Roto news agency. He stored that his famous sister knew someone at the school and that when she had previously spoken to her friend, “she had been crying so much that she had fallen to the ground.”
“She thought what she saw was very scary. Just people screaming,” Mr Mokhad said, describing the scene his famous brother’s friend saw.
Another witness, a student at the school, who gave only her first name, Marwa, described a difficult scene in which she and several others tried to save their lives.
“A boy next to me was shot in the shoulder. He was bleeding profusely. I looked behind me and saw three people bleeding on the ground,” she told TV4 Sweden.
“He’s not bleeding much,” Marva and another friend said, wrapping a shawl around the injured man’s arms and trying to help him.
“Everyone was very shocked.”
Earlier today, Prime Minister Kristensen had called it a “very painful day for everyone in Sweden,” sharing that everyone was thinking about those who had replaced a “normal school day” with “fear.”
“Being confined to a classroom in fear for their own lives is a nightmare that no one should have to experience,” Kristensen wrote in a post on X.
He later asked the police to give him the freedom and space to do their work and investigations, as he stressed that there were no longer any risks involved in going to school.
Kristersen further observed that further information would be disseminated by the police and the Swedish government in the coming days.