A shooting at an adult education center in Sweden on Tuesday left around 10 people dead, marking the country’s deadliest gun attack, Reuters reported, citing Swedish police.
Authorities stated that the gunman was believed to be among those killed. Investigators continued searching the school in Orebro for any additional victims. The motive behind the attack was not immediately clear.
"We know that 10 or so people have been killed here today. The reason that we can't be more exact currently is that the extent of the incident is so large," local police chief Roberto Eid Forest said during a news conference.
Forest noted that the suspect appeared to have acted alone and that there was no immediate indication of terrorism as a motive, though he emphasized that many details were still unknown. The suspected shooter was not previously known to law enforcement.
The attack occurred at Risbergska school in Orebro, a city about 200 kilometers west of Stockholm. The institution serves adults who did not complete their formal education or did not meet the academic requirements for higher studies. The campus also houses schools for children.
Police continued to investigate the crime scene and searched several locations in Orebro following the attack.
By late Tuesday, law enforcement remained outside an apartment building in central Orebro that had been raided earlier in connection with the shooting.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson acknowledged the severity of the attack, saying, "It is hard to take in the full extent of what has happened today -- the darkness that now lowers itself across Sweden tonight."
King Carl XVI Gustav expressed his condolences, saying, "It is with deep sadness and dismay that my family and I received the news about the terrible atrocity in Orebro."
In recent years, Sweden has struggled with a surge in shootings and bombings linked to gang violence. Sweden has recorded the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the European Union, though school shootings remain rare.
According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, there were seven incidents of deadly violence in schools between 2010 and 2022, resulting in 10 fatalities.
One of the country’s most notorious attacks occurred in 2015 when a 21-year-old masked assailant, driven by racist motives, killed a teaching assistant and a student while injuring two others.
Another high-profile attack happened in 2017, when a man drove a truck through a busy shopping street in Stockholm before crashing into a department store, killing five people.