Police in Sweden are trying to figure out why an 18-year-old student allegedly killed two teachers at a school in Malmo as new details of the attack emerged.
The two victims, both women in their 50s, were teachers at Malmo Latin, a creative arts secondary school with more than 1,000 students in Sweden’s third-largest city, police said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The suspect was arrested without resistance just 10 minutes after he was first alerted to the attack, police chief Petra Stenkula said. According to a report in Aftonbladet newspaper, the alleged attacker called the emergency services to say where he was and had laid down his arms, and confessed to the killings.
Police were alerted to the attack at 17:12 local time (16:12 GMT) and a first patrol was able to enter the school minutes later. His two victims were lying on the ground nearby, she added. The teachers were taken to hospital for treatment, but their deaths were announced later in the evening.
About 50 students and teachers were inside at the time, and news footage showed heavily equipped and armed police inspecting the inside of the building.
According to media reports, the suspect, whose name has not been released, was armed with a knife and an axe, although police have not confirmed this information. Stenkula said police “seized multiple non-firearms” at the scene.
Investigators are now trying to determine whether the suspect deliberately targeted his victims or chose them at random and whether he had planned to attack other people.
“We don’t yet know if he had any connection with these employees,” Stenkula told reporters.
The student “has no criminal record,” she said, adding that police investigated his background and movements before the attack. Investigators searched the suspect’s home in the nearby town of Trelleborg, she added.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson expressed her sadness and dismay at the attack.
A support group for teachers and students has been set up at the high school, which closed Tuesday with the Swedish flag flying at half-mast, local authorities said.
“Everyone is deeply shocked. Devastated,” a teacher at the school, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Tuesday. “It is a terrible crime; it’s impossible to record everything,” she said, standing in front of the school where a group of about 20 students stood hugging and crying, some with flowers to put on the floor.
“It’s so sad that it happened here, in the place where I and many other students feel safest. It’s a warm and loving school,” said 18-year-old student Lydia Cronberg.
“It’s not like it used to be… It’s going to be hard to come back, to hold a memorial ceremony. We’re going to take it one day at a time,” she said.
Attacks on schools are relatively rare in Sweden, but there have been several serious incidents in schools in southern Sweden in recent months.
In January, a 16-year-old was arrested after stabbing another student and a teacher at a school in the small town of Kristianstad.
That incident was linked to a similar knife attack in August 2021 in the town of Eslov, about 30 miles away, when a student attacked a 45-year-old school worker.
No connection was made between these two events and the Malmo attack.