A shooting spree at a secondary school in Graz, Austria’s second city, has left at least 10 people dead and 28 injured, some of whom were in critical condition.
The attack unfolded shortly before 10 am on June 10 at the BORG Dreierschützengasse school in Lend, a district in the city’s northwest.
According to preliminary reports, the perpetrator was a 22-year-old ex-student who had described himself as a victim of bullying in the past.
He reportedly fired shots in two classrooms, reportedly using a pistol and a shotgun, killing and injuring multiple pupils and teachers. The dead reportedly included seven pupils and one adult.
The suspected shooter was later found dead in one of the school’s toilets, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. At noon, the Graz police declared they had secured the area and the threat had been contained.
Videos from the school showed dramatic scenes, including the victims laid on stretchers outside the school building and the evacuation of pupils by heavily-armed Austrian policemen. On one witness’ video a barrage of loud shots could be heard.
The area where the school was located was one of the poorer of Graz, the capital of the Austrian State of Styria. In a post on social network Reddit, one user described the area as “a bit ghetto-like”.
Austrian politicians were quick to express their shock and best wishes for the victims. “This is inconceivable. As a politician and a father I am deeply saddened by this insane act,” said Mario Kunasek, Styria’s State President.
School shootings are very rare in Austria with the Graz attack only the third such incident in at least the past 30 years.
In 1997, a 15-year-old student shot a teacher dead and wounded another in a school in Zöbern Lower Austria. In 2018, an 18-year-old gravely injured a fellow student with a shotgun at a school in Mistelbach, Lower Austria.
There have, though, been other spree shootings in Austria in the past. In 2020, a 20-year-old Austrian of Albanian descent killed three people in an Islamist-motivated shooting attack in Vienna.
The Graz attack came almost to the day of the 10-year anniversary of a vehicle ramming attack in which a Bosnian man ploughed through Graz’s central pedestrian zone with his 4×4, killing three people, including a four-year old boy, and injuring dozens.
