An attack on a school in southeast Austria by a former student left nine people dead, authorities said Tuesday, in a rare case of mortal armed violence in the Alpine country.
The strongly armed police, a helicopter and paramedics descended on the school in Graz, where 10 people, including the alleged solitary shooter, were killed, said the Regional Police.
Six of the victims were women and three were men, authorities confirmed later, without specifying their ages.
Twelve people suffered serious injuries.
Police said the situation was “safe” and that support was being provided to witnesses and those affected.
The suspect acted alone and took his life in the school’s bathroom, the police said, added that his motive was still unknown.
Later, on Tuesday, Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker declared three days of national mourning to remember the victims, saying that the country had witnessed “an act of unimaginable violence.”
According to the police, the alleged author is an Austrian of 21 years of the largest region of Graz.
The author used two weapons that he had legally had to carry out the attack.
The alleged shooter was a former student at school, but he had not finished his studies, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told reporters.
“It is a disaster, simply terrible. After all, these are children,” said Hasan Darsel, owner of a restaurant in the area, to the Kronen Zeitung newspaper.
‘Deeply surprised’
After arriving in Graz, Stocker described the shooting as “a national tragedy,” and added that it was “a dark day” for Austria.
The condolences arrived from all over Europe.
The main diplomat of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, said it was “deeply shocked” when she learned about the shooting.
“Each child must feel safe at school and be able to learn free from fear and violence,” Kallas published in X.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “our thoughts are with our Austrian friends and neighbors and we cried with them” after the shooting at school, he called “horrible.”
Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, offered his “deepest condolences to Foreign Minister Christian Stocker and the people of Austria” through social networks.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that “the news of Graz touches my heart”, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed his sympathy to the families of the victims after the “tragic news.”
The attacks in public are rare in Austria, which houses almost 9.2 million people and is among the 10 safest countries in the world, according to the global peace index.
School shootings are also much more unusual in Europe than in the United States, but in recent years, Europe has been shaken by attacks in schools and universities that were not connected to terrorism.
In France, on Tuesday, a teaching assistant was killed in a school in Nogent in the east after a knife attack.
In January 2025, an 18 -year -old man fatally stabbed a high school student and a teacher in a school in the northeast of Slovakia.
In December 2024, a 19 -year -old man stabbed a seven -year -old student to death and wounded several others in a primary school in Zagreb, Croatia.
In December 2023, an attack by a student at a university in the center of Prague left 14 people dead and 25 wounds.
A few months before that year, a 13 -year -old boy shot nine classmates and a security guard in a primary school in the center of Belgrade.
