The death toll in the shooting at the Prague Charles University rose to more than 15. A gunman on Thursday went on a rampage at the university building in the Czech Republic’s worst such incident in decades before authorities said the attacker was “eliminated”.
“More than 15 people have lost their lives and at least 24 have been wounded,” said police chief Martin Vondrasek. The Czech government said the shooting incident is not linked to “international terrorism”. “There is no indication that this crime has any link to international terrorism”, said interior minister Vit Rakusan.
The violence in the city’s historic centre sparked frantic evacuations, a massive response by heavily armed police and warnings for people to stay indoors. The shooting erupted at the Faculty of Arts, which sits near major tourist sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge.
Teachers and students were instructed to lock themselves up as police action was underway. The private Nova TV reported a blast and a gunman on the roof of the university building.
Czech President Petr Pavel said he was “shocked” by the violence and expressed “deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims”. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she was “shocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today”.
Prague’s emergency service said on X that “a large number of ambulance units” were deployed at the faculty, adding the injuries ranged from light to very serious.
Though mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the country has been rocked by some instances in recent years. A 63-year-old man shot seven men and a woman dead in 2015 before killing himself in a restaurant in the southeastern town of Uhersky Brod.
A man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava in 2019, with another woman dying days later. The man shot himself dead about three hours after the attack.
(With agency inputs)
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