11 people killed in school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz

Tuesday's school shooting in the southern Austrian city of Graz claimed at least eleven lives and left many more injured.

The country’s interior ministry that the victims included children between 14 and 18 years old. Police claimed the accused killer among the dead.

At a Tuesday news conference, Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner declared nine lives were "taken from us, including six females and three males." He added that 12 people were also injured. The Graz Regional Hospital said that a woman who was wounded later died of her injuries.

The police added that they had identified the suspected shooter as a 21-year-old from Graz, adding that he appeared to have died in the bathroom by suicide.

The police indicated that there was only one suspect engaged in the shooting and that the gunman used two pistols subsequently seized from the institution.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said Tuesday that the shooting marked “a dark day” in the country’s history.

“My thoughts, considerations and deepest sympathies with the people who have suffered a loss... in this terrible, horrible event,” Stocker said.

“Solving conflict through violence should never be a part of our lives,” said Stocker, adding “our schools have to remain spaces of peace, where our children can learn and grow without any danger.”

 Styrian State Police Director Gerald Ortner said Tuesday that the police had received emergency calls from the location of the incident around 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. E.T.), and arrived on site within a few minutes. He also mentioned an ambulance and a special task group.

In a press statement Tuesday, police asked the public to “stay away from the area” and to “strictly follow the instructions of the emergency services.” They also mentioned having created a forum for tips or other remarks.

In a statement on X, Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen said “there is nothing that can ease the pain at the moment, which the parents, the grandparents, the siblings, the friends of those killed are feeling.”

“These were adolescents, who had their whole life ahead of them,” he said. “This horror cannot be put into words.”

Along with much of central Europe, Austria has very little gun violence. The country’s rate of firearm homicides was just 0.1 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, compared to 4.5 per 100,000 people in the United States.

But Austria’s gun ownership is higher than most European Union countries; there are 30 civilian firearms owned for every 100 citizens, according to the Small Arms Survey, a research institute based in Switzerland.

A small number of high-profile violent incidents have taken place there in recent years. Along with another victim, in October the mayor of a northern Austrian town was shot dead.

In February, a 23-year-old man stabbed five passersby in southern Austria in what police said was a random attack.

Three days of mourning have been declared in Austria. Flags on the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, where President van der Bellen has his office, will fly at half-mast.