VIENNA: An attack on a school in Graz, Austria reportedly by a former student has left several people dead, police said Tuesday, in a rare case of deadly gun violence in a European school.
Heavily armed police, a helicopter and paramedics descended upon the school in Graz, where 10 people including the alleged lone shooter were killed and "several severely injured", regional police said on X.
"The identities of those affected are currently being established," police said, adding the situation as secure and support was being provided to witnesses and those affected.
Graz Mayor Elke Kahr told Austrian press agency APA that 10 people including several students and one adult were killed.
Authorities say the assailant was a 21-year-old man who had two weapons, which he appeared to have owned legally. Austrian media reported the suspect is believed to be a former student who also took his own life.
"The situation is very unclear at the moment," police sources told Austria's APA news agency.
"It's a disaster, simply terrible. After all, it's about children," Hasan Darsel, a restaurant owner in the area, told the newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
Austria declares national mourning
Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker on Tuesday declared three days of national mourning after the school shooting.
"During three days of national mourning, all of Austria" will remember the victims, Stocker told a press conference in Graz.
"This is a dark day," he said, standing alongside Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, adding that the Alpine country had seen "an act of unimaginable violence".
Deeply shocked
Condolences poured in from across Europe.
EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas declared herself "deeply shocked" Tuesday by reports of the shooting.
"Every child should feel safe at school and be able to learn free from fear and violence," Kallas posted on X. "My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the Austrian people in this dark moment."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said "the news from Graz touches my heart."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her sympathies to the families of the victims following the "tragic news".
Attacks in public are rare in Austria, an Alpine nation of almost 9.2 million people, which ranks among the 10 safest countries in the world, according to the Global Peace Index.
School shootings are also much more uncommon in Europe than in the United States but in recent years Europe has been shaken by attacks at schools and universities, that were not connected to terrorism.
In France on Tuesday, a teaching assistant was killed at a school in Nogent in the east following a knife attack.
In January 2025, an 18-year-old man fatally stabbed a high school student and a teacher at a school in northeastern Slovakia.
In December 2024, a 19-year-old man stabbed a seven-year-old student to death and injured several others at a primary school in Zagreb, Croatia.
In December 2023, an attack by a student at a university in central Prague left 14 people dead and 25 injured.
A few months earlier that year, a 13-year-old gunned down eight fellow classmates and a security guard at an elementary school in downtown Belgrade. Six children and a teacher were also injured. The shooter contacted the police, who arrested him.
In 2009, nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by were killed in a school shooting at Winnenden in southern Germany by a former pupil who then killed himself.