10’ dead in school shooting

Around 10 people were killed in a shooting at an education center in central Sweden on Tuesday (February 4, 2025), including the suspected assailant, who was not known to police, police officials said.

“Around 10 people have been killed today,” Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest told reporters, adding that police could “not be more specific” about the number. “The suspected assailant is not known to police.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Forest said police received the first reports of a school shooting at 12.33 p.m. (5.03 p.m. IST), but could not specify how it unfolded nor whether it occurred inside or outside the school.

Two Campus Risbergska teachers, Miriam Jarlevall and Patrik Soderman, told newspaper Dagens Nyheter they heard gunfire in a hallway.

“Students came and said someone was shooting. Then we heard more shooting in the hallway. We didn’t go out, we hid in our offices,” they said.

“There were a lot of gunshots at first, and then it was quiet for a half-hour and then it started again. We were lying under our desks, cowering.”

Some witnesses told Swedish media they heard what they believed to be automatic gunfire.

“It is a very painful day for all of Sweden,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X.

“My thoughts are also with all those whose normal school day was replaced with horror. Being confined to a classroom fearing for your own life is a nightmare that no one should have to experience.”

He said the government was “closely monitoring developments”.

A mother whose son was kept indoors at his nearby school for several hours during the police operation told AFP she was “shocked” and “angry”.

“My son is at this school behind us, they’re locked in too. They have to hide, so I’m waiting for them to evacuate,” Cia Sandell, 42, said.

“This is crazy, totally crazy. I’m angry, I’m shocked. This shouldn’t happen,” she said.

Though such shootings are rare, several other violent incidents have struck Swedish schools in recent years.

In March 2022, an 18-year-old student stabbed two teachers to death at a secondary school in the southern city of Malmo.

Two months earlier, a 16-year-old was arrested after wounding another student and a teacher with a knife at a school in the small town of Kristianstad.

In October 2015, three people were killed in a racially-motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhattan by a sword-wielding assailant who was later killed by police.