From Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 54 minutes ago
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On Thursday, December 21, a student at Charles University in the historic center of the Czech capital killed 14 people before committing suicide.
Minute of silence, flags at half-mast and crowds across the country: the Czech Republic pays tribute this Saturday to the victims of the massacre that left 14 dead and 25 injured at the University of Prague on Thursday, December 21, the worst attack in history committed in this country.
The government called on Czechs to observe a minute's silence and ring bells in churches across the EU and NATO member country at midday Saturday, two days after a 24-year-old student sparked terror by shooting students before committing suicide. “It is difficult to find the words to express, on the one hand, the condemnation and, on the other hand, the pain and sadness that our entire population is feeling in these days before Christmas,” said Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
“It could have been me”
Students lit thousands of candles in an improvised memorial in front of the Faculty of Arts and the headquarters of Charles University in the historic center of the Czech capital. The identities of the victims, students and teachers, were released by their relatives and the school. “This could have happened to anyone. In fact, it could have been me,” said student Antonin Volavka on Friday as he lit a candle at the makeshift memorial.
“It is very difficult for all of us,” the Institute of Musicology reported on Facebook after learning that its director, Lenka Hlavkova, 49, a mother of two, was among the victims. Other victims include Finnish literary expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova. Among the injured are a Dutch citizen and two from the United Arab Emirates.
There is a connection to an unsolved double murder
Since Thursday, police have arrested four people who threatened or approved a repeat of the attack. The Interior Minister announced that police surveillance would be organized around certain locations and school buildings at least until January 1st. Police Chief Martin Vondrasek emphasized that the attacker, who was unknown to the courts, had a “huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition.” He said investigating the crime scene was “the most harrowing experience” of his 31 years of police service. Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said no connection could be made between the attack and “international terrorism” and that the attacker had acted independently.
According to Martin Vondrasek, police began searching for the student before the shooting, as his father's body was discovered in the village of Hostoun, west of Prague. The student had also told a friend that he was contemplating suicide in Prague.
The police then searched a building in the Faculty of Arts where the murderer was supposed to report for a course, but eventually went near the main building of the university. At around 2pm GMT, police became aware of the shots fired and sent an intervention unit to the scene. Twenty minutes later, the attacker was dead. According to a report from the shooter on social networks, he suggested that he was inspired by a similar attack in Russia, explained Martin Vondrasek.
After a search of the shooter's apartment, police linked him to the unsolved murder of a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a forest near Prague on December 15. “Ballistic analysis revealed that the weapon used in the woods was identical to the one found in the university shooter’s home,” police said on X.
Deadliest shooting since 1993
The shooting in the historic center of Prague, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the deadliest since the Czech Republic's independence in 1993. Messages of condolence and sympathy have poured in from around the world from Pope François and American President Joe Biden, particularly the French head of state Emmanuel Macron, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, King Charles of Great Britain.
The Czech Republic is the 12th safest country in the world, according to the Global Peace Index 2023, and gun violence is rare there. In 2015, a man fatally shot seven men and a woman before killing himself at a restaurant in the southeast, while another gunman killed seven people at a hospital in the east of the country and then himself in 2019.