Knife attack in a school, a child killed in Zagreb

A seven-year-old pupil was killed and many others were injured in a stabbing attack in a school in the Croatian capital Zagreb,a 19-year-old man was arrested as a suspect, authorities said. Parents and pupils expressed shock and anger and police sealed off Precko primary school after the attack, which is believed to be the first school atrocity of its kind in the Balkan country.

Health Minister Irena Hrstic told reporters: “In total six people were injured, of whom unfortunately one child died at the scene after intensive efforts to resuscitate him.” “The deceased child is seven years old,” he added. Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic stated that the suspect is a former student of the school 19 years old.

After the attack, the suspect fled and hid in a nearby health center, where he attempted to commit suicide with a knife and was arrested by the police, the minister added. The suspect has a history of mental disorders and a year ago he attempted suicide, Bozinovic said. The minister said a preliminary investigation indicated the attack occurred in a school corridor, not a classroom.

Parents, quoted by state broadcaster HRT, said the pupils had just finished breakfast at school when they saw a young man hitting a boy and then panic broke out. “I learned from my sister that there was no one at the entrance and that the attacker entered, breaking into a first-grade classroom and then a fifth-grade classroom,” said Filip, 14, outside the school, referring to his sister, who is in first grade. Filip – who attends school in the afternoon – said other first graders leaving the scene were “speechless with shock”. Others called for more security after the attack.

“We are shocked, like all Croatian public opinion, by the horrible tragedy that occurred in the primary school,” Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said at the start of a cabinet meeting. Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic and Education Minister Radovan Fuchs rushed to the school after the attack. Around noon, about a dozen police cars with their lights on were parked in front of the school. The area was cordoned off and forensic experts were collecting evidence in the schoolyard.

Attacks of this kind are rare in Croatia. In July, a gunman killed six people at a retirement home in Daruvar, eastern Croatia, in an attack that shocked the Balkan country. Neighboring Serbia was rocked by a series of mass shootings last year, including a massacre at a school in the capital Belgrade in which 10 people were killed. Croatian authorities have called a day of national mourning for Saturday.