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Trollhättan school attack
Two dead, three hurt in Sweden school attack
The school on Thursday. Photo: Stig Hedström/TT

Two dead, three hurt in Sweden school attack

The Local · 22 Oct 2015, 14:30

Published: 22 Oct 2015 10:51 GMT+02:00
Updated: 22 Oct 2015 14:30 GMT+02:00

  • Pupil and teacher dead and three injured in school attack
  • One of two boys, 11 and 15, being treated for serious stab wounds is reported dead
  • Attacker seriously injured
  • Student tells The Local his teacher was stabbed
  • 'If I had not run, I would have been murdered,' student tells The Local
  • PM Stefan Löfven: 'A dark day for Sweden'

The attack took place on Thursday morning at the school, around 75km from Gothenburg, after a man wearing a mask walked into a building on the premises. 

Police spokesman Stefan Gustafsson later told Swedish media that the attacker was in his twenties and used “several knife-like objects”.

A hospital in Trollhättan confirmed that a teacher died in the incident.

Police later said that one of the two boys, 11 and 15, being treated for serious stab wounds along with a male teacher at Trollhättan hospital had also died. The attacker is also injured.

"The suspect has been shot and is being treated at NÄL (the regional hospital). He is seriously injured and is being operated on," said hospital spokesperson Niklas Claesson.
 
Police, who were alerted about the attack at around 10.10am, told Swedish media they had identified the attacker but did not disclose any other information about him. The motive was not immediately clear.
 
Media reports said the assailant was wearing a Star Wars mask, and school children initially thought it was a prank.
 
"When we first saw him, we thought it was a joke. He was wearing a mask and black clothes and (carrying) a long sword. Some students warned to take their picture with him and feel the sword," one unidentified pupil told the TT news agency.
 
 
The scene outside the school shortly after the attacks. Photo: Mikael Svantesson.
 
A teenage student at the school has told The Local of the moment he realised what was happening:

“I was in a classroom with my class when one of my classmates’ sisters called her to warn her that there was a murderer at the school. So we locked the door to the classroom, but our teacher was still outside in the corridor.”

“We wanted to warn him, so a few of us went outside and then I saw the murderer, he was wearing a mask and had a sword. Our teacher got stabbed."

“The murderer started chasing me, I ran into another classroom. If I had not run, I would have been murdered. I’m feeling really scared. Everyone’s scared here.”

Stefan Benhage, a photographer for local newspaper TTELA, told his publication just after the attack happened that there was "complete chaos" at the school and described pupils sobbing at the scene.
 
A large number of police cars and ambulances are in the area. One ambulance crashed into the school wall as it arrived at the school.
 
An ambulance crashed into the school wall as it arrived at the scene. Photo: Mikael Svantesson.
 
Around 400 pupils are understood to be taught at the school, aged between six and fifteen.
 
Trollhättan is an industrial town in west Sweden, located around 75km north of Gothenburg, the nation's second largest city.
 
According to Sweden's education watchdog, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate, only 16 percent of 15-year-olds at the school passed all subjects in 2014. It is among the 10 worst performing schools in Sweden.
 
"This is a school where problems have been picked up in a recent national inspection," Larz Blomqvist, chairman of the teacher's union in the municipality, told The Local.
 
"It's been hard to provide quiet and proper teaching...there's been bad behaviour and a sort of lack of control."
 
But he disputed suggestions in international media that the attack could have been a result of racial tensions in the area.
 
"No, no, I doubt it. I don't have the full information but that sounds very unlikely."
 
 
Ribana Boskovic, 20 years old, lives two minutes from the school, which she said her sister attended and enjoyed. She told The Local earlier in the morning that she could see ten police cars outside the school:
 
"There are a lot of people outside the school. A lot of people are crying because they’re so worried. It’s very chaotic; parents are running around to find their children."
 
"My mum is feeling really bad at the moment, even though my sister is safe I’m very stressed and worried. I can’t understand why it happened here."
 
Local authorities have sent a crisis group the scene to look after students and staff.

“The group is composed of seven municipal employees, whose job it is to provide comfort and support during the emergency situation,” said Per Ivarsson, internal communications manager at Trollhättan’s local council.

Prime minister Stefan Löfven will visit Trollhättan on Thursday afternoon to meet those affected.

"This is a dark day for Sweden. I am thinking of the victims and their families, pupils and staff, and the whole affected community. Words cannot describe what they are going through right at the moment. We feel for them, and we will make sure that they get all the support they need," he said in a statement issued by his office."

School attacks are rare in normally-tranquil Sweden. A 1961 school shooting in Kungälv, in south-western Sweden, left one person dead and six others injured.

No other mass shootings have occurred since then, though at least one attack has been foiled, in the southern city of Malmö in 2004. Other threats have been issued but not followed through.

For more news from Sweden, join us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Local (news@thelocal.se)

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