CNN
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A shooter opened fire at a high school in the Austrian city of Graz on 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.
Interior minister Gerhard Karner said at a news conference that of the nine victims, six were female and three were male. Twelve students were injured in the incident, some of them seriously, Karner added.
The suspect – a 21-year-old Austrian who had previously attended the school but not graduated – used two weapons, a rifle and a handgun, to carry out the killing spree, before fatally shooting himself in a bathroom, authorities said at the news conference.
Officials would not give a motive for the alleged perpetrator, who they say acted alone. Police believe he obtained the weapons he used legally.
The shooting pitched Austria into a state of shock and disbelief. Gun violence is rare in central Europe, and Monday was one of the darkest days in the country’s recent past. Chancellor Christian Stocker announced three days of national mourning, writing on X: “There are no words for the pain and grief.”
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.
Stocker expressed horror at the shooting, writing on X: “The rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country. This inconceivable act suddenly tore young people from the life they still had ahead of them.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said: “It is difficult to bear when schools become places of death and violence.”
Gun violence is rare in Austria, along with most central European countries. The country’s rate of firearm homicides was just 0.1 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, compared to 4.5 per 100,000 people in the United States.
But Austria’s gun ownership is higher than most European Union countries; there are 30 civilian firearms owned for every 100 citizens, according to the Small Arms Survey, a research institute based in Switzerland.
A small number of high-profile violent incidents have taken place there in recent years. Last October, the mayor of a northern Austrian town was shot dead, along with another victim.
In February, a 23-year-old man stabbed five passersby in southern Austria in what police said was a random attack.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
