Gunman kills at least nine in attack on Austrian secondary school

VIENNA (Reuters) -A gunman killed at least nine people in an attack at a secondary school in the southern Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday.

Police said the attacker was also killed and that a number of people had been injured. They did not say how many of the dead were pupils.

Police did not publicly identify the killer but said they were working on the assumption that he acted alone. Austrian media cited unconfirmed reports saying he was a former pupil who had entered the school and opened fire on pupils.

"The rampage at a school in Graz is a national tragedy that has deeply shaken our entire country," Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said in a statement.

"There are no words for the pain and grief that we all - all of Austria - are feeling right now."

A local police spokesman said the area had been secured, the school had been evacuated and relatives of the victims and pupils were being cared for. Emergency workers could be seen loading a stretcher into an ambulance in video from the scene.

In reports that Reuters could not immediately verify, the Kurier and Salzburger Nachrichten newspapers identified the suspect as a 22-year-old former student. Salzburger Nachrichten said he had been a victim of bullying.

He carried a pistol and a shotgun and opened fire on pupils in two classrooms, one of which had once been his classroom.

The Kronen Zeitung tabloid said a suspect had been found dead in a bathroom.

UNBEARABLE

Police were called to the scene at around 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) after shots were heard at the school.

Julia Ebner, an extremism expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank, said the incident appeared to be the worst school shooting in Austria's post-war history, describing such shootings as rare compared to some countries including the United States.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X: "Every child should feel safe at school and be able to learn free from fear and violence. My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the Austrian people in this dark moment."

Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 persons, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project.

Machine guns and pump action guns are banned, while revolvers, pistols and semi-automatic weapons are allowed only with official authorization. Rifles and shotguns are permitted with a firearms license or a valid hunting licence, or for members of traditional shooting clubs.

Four people were killed and 22 injured when a convicted jihadist went on a shooting spree in the centre of Vienna in 2020. In November 1997, a 36-year-old mechanic shot dead six people in the town of Mauterndorf before killing himself.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy, Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich, John Revill, Dave Graham, Thomas Seythal and Friederike Heine, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Peter Graff)