2 killed in knife attack at Swedish school

Two teachers were killed in a violent attack at a high school in the southern Swedish city of Malmo on Monday, reported Xinhua.

This has been the third school attack in the country since last summer.

The suspect, an 18-year-old student at the school, was arrested at the scene ten minutes after the first emergency call was made. The two critically injured teachers, both women in their 50s, were rushed to hospital where they were later pronounced dead.

The Malmo latinskola (Latin School) in the heart of Sweden's third largest city has around 1,000 students. As the attack occurred late on Monday, only around 50 people were present in the building. Many of them were students rehearsing a musical, local media reported. They fled and found shelter. None of them were injured.

"I was at the school when it happened, and even though I didn't see what was happening it's tough because I knew all those involved. It feels as if I will never be able to go back to school and walk its corridors," one of the students told Swedish Television.

Due to the ongoing investigation, the police have only released scant details.

"We have seized weapons, but it is difficult to say which have been used before the forensic investigation is completed. However, no firearms were used," Malmo Police Chief Petra Stenkula told journalists on Tuesday.

She revealed that the suspect surrendered without incident and that he had no criminal record.

The motive behind the attack is still unknown, but the police are cooperating with the Swedish Security Service to investigate whether it was a hate crime.

No further official information is expected to emerge before the suspect is charged. Local media reported that the 18-year-old was armed with an axe and a knife.

This was the third school attack in Sweden since August last year, all of which took place within 90 kilometers of Malmo.

Monday's attack occurred only days after a higher court upheld the sentence of a 16-year-old boy, who had previously been found guilty of a similar attack in the town of Eslov in August 2021.

During the investigations of the Eslov attack, police discovered a death list with the names of several other students and evidence that it was a hate crime. The boy also filmed the attack and streamed the video live.

Nobody was killed in Eslov, but a teacher was injured. The boy, who was 15 at the time, was in December sentenced to 30 months in juvenile detention for attempted murder and related charges. Had he been 21 at the time of the attack, he could have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The boy appealed, but last week a higher court confirmed his sentence.

Following another non-fatal school attack in Kristianstad 90 kilometers northeast of Malmo two months ago, the police found evidence that the 16-year-old suspect had been in contact with the boy behind the attack in Eslov.

Police investigating Monday's attack will look into whether the suspect was influenced by, or somehow connected to, these other perpetrators.

Concerns regarding security in Swedish schools have emerged following an attack in 2015, when a young man armed with a sword and a knife killed three people in Trollhattan in western Sweden before he was shot to death by police officers.

In 2016 and 2017, two students in Swedish schools were stabbed to death by fellow students following arguments.

Many Swedish schools have since participated in workshops where staff are trained on how to react to such attacks.