Girl, 7, killed and multiple wounded during knife rampage at school
A seven-year-old girl has succumbed to her injuries after a knife rampage at a primary school in Croatia on the last day before the Christmas holidays.
Prečko Elementary School in the capital of Zagreb was locked down amid the attack, which has been described as a ‘bloodbath’.
One teacher and seven children have been wounded, with some in critical condition.
Health minister Irena Hristic confirmed that one pupil has died in the last hour, as quoted by Nova TV.
Footage shared online shows students, aged between five and 11, fleeing the scene in the Prečko neighbourhood.
A helicopter has landed on the school playground to bring those injured to hospital.
Multiple police teams were deployed to the primary school after the alarm was raised during the first class.
Police described the attacker as a ‘young male’ and confirmed that he has been detained.
Croatian media has since identified him as teenager aged 19, but did not say if he was a former student at the school.
‘We are horrified,’ prime minister Andrej Plenkovic told journalists, adding that some of the pupils have been hospitalised.
Parents were seen outside the gates of the school, panickily awaiting for information about their children.
State HRT television said the attacker entered the school and went straight into the first classroom he found and began stabbing the children.
The father of a girl who goes to the school told Croatian news outlet Index: ‘Everything was chaotic, the police were at the school, the perpetrator ran from the school to the ambulance, 30-40 meters away.
‘He was covered in blood… My child is in third grade, she didn’t know what happened. And the children who were in first grade said that he went inside and attacked them one by one.’
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