11 People Killed In Sweden's Deadly Shooting

Illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Tony Webster)

JAKARTA - Sweden experienced the country's deadliest shooting incident, when 11 people died in a shooting at an education center on Tuesday, which Sweden's prime minister called "a painful day".

The shooting took place in Orebro, about 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, to be precise at the Risbergska School for adults who did not complete their formal education or failed to get a score to proceed to higher education.

The school is located on a campus that also houses schools for children.

Maria Pegado (54), a teacher at the school, said someone opened the door to her class right after lunch break and shouted at everyone to get out.

"I took all 15 of my students to the aisle and we started running," he told Reuters by telephone.

"Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance. I saw people drag the injured out, first one person, then another. I realized that this was very serious," he said.

Meanwhile, Swedish police said the man who shot was believed to be among those killed and the search for possible other victims continued at the school.

The motive for the shooting of the gunman is not yet known.

"We know that about 10 people have died here today. The reason we can't provide more precise information at the moment is because the incidence rate is huge," local police chief Roberto Eid Forest said at a press conference.

In the evening, the police website wrote, "Currently, there are 11 deaths as a result of the incident. The number of injured is still unclear. We currently have no information about the condition of those injured."

Forest said at a news conference police believed the gunman acted alone and terrorism was currently not suspected of being a motive, although he warned that much was still unknown.

He also said that the suspected gunman was previously unknown to the police.

"We have a large crime scene, we have to complete the search we did at the school. There are a number of investigative steps that we have taken: the profile of the perpetrators, witness interviews," Forest explained.

Police said they were still investigating the scene and had searched several addresses on Orebro after the attack.

On Tuesday night, police cars and personnel were still outside an apartment building in the previously raided center of Orebro.

Separately, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.

"It is difficult to fully accept what happened today, the darkness that is now enveloping Sweden tonight," he told a news conference.

Meanwhile, King Carl XVI Gustav expressed his condolences for the shooting.

"With deep sadness and disappointment, my family and I received news of the terrible cruelty at Orebro," said King Carl XVI Gustav.

Sweden has been battling a wave of shootings and bombings caused by endemic gang crime issues that have seen the country of 10 million people record the highest per capita gun violence rate in the European Union in recent years.

However, fatal attacks in schools are rare.

Earlier, ten people were killed in seven separate deadly incidents in schools between 2010 and 2022, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.

Sweden has a high degree of arms possession by European standards, mainly related to hunting, although much lower than in the United States.

In one of the most famous crimes of the past decade, a 21-year-old masked assailant driven by racist motives, killed an assistant teacher and a boy and injured two others in 2015.

In 2017, a man driving a truck hit a buyer on a busy street in downtown Stockholm before hitting a department store. Five people died in the attack.