The attack of a former student of a Russian school in the republic of Udmurtia, in the Urals, today left at least 15 dead and 24 injured, and evoked two similar tragedies that occurred throughout 2021.
15 people were killed, including 11 children and 4 adults,” according to a statement from the Russian Instruction Committee.
Among the 24 injured, there are 22 minors, adds the note. The deceased adults are two school guards and two teachers, authorities reported.
Aggressor, a former student of the school
The perpetrator of the shooting, which took place at Izhevsk school 88, was identified as Artyom Kazantsev, 34, and graduated from the same educational center.
We know the name of the man who did that. It is Artyom Kazantsev, a resident of Izhevsk, who was in the patient registry of a psychiatric hospital.”
The attacker, who committed suicide, was wearing a shirt with Nazi symbols, according to the images of the place released by the Instruction Committee.
According to the authorities, he was armed with two BB guns converted to fire lethal ammunition.
On the magazines of the pistol, whose photos were published on social networks, you can read the word “hate” written in red paint.
Russian investigators have carried out a search of the shooter’s home to gather more information about the details of the tragedy.
Panic in the classrooms
Kazantsev arrived at his old school around 11:00 a.m. (07:00 GMT).
The students at the center say he shot one of the guards dead as soon as he entered the front door.
Later, according to witnesses, he began to move around different classrooms.
Some of the students had to jump out the window due to the impossibility of escaping through the corridor and they present different injuries and fractures due to falling from a height.according to medical sources.
A student at the school told the Baza Telegram channel that she was in math class when she heard the shots.
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According to the girl, the attacker shot her teacher. She then left the room and continued down the hall yelling “Where are you bastards?”
Other teachers locked themselves in the classrooms with their pupilsafter placing “barricades” with the help of furniture.
Days of mourning in Russia
The Udmurt authorities declared several days of mourning for the victims of the attack that will last until September 29.
Likewise, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, presented his condolences; the prime minister, Mijaíl Mishustin, and other authorities.
President Putin deeply regrets the death of people, children at school, where a terrorist attack took place,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.
Peskov added that the perpetrator of the shooting is a man who was part of a “neo-fascist organization.”
School shootings, increasingly recurrent
The Izhevsk tragedy, with some 600,000 inhabitants, evoked two similar attacks in 2021 in the memory of Russians.
In May 2021, a former student of a school in Kazan, in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, shot into the educational center, causing nine deaths and 23 injuries, most of them children.
Another shooting at a university in Perm, also in the Urals, left six dead and fifty wounded in September of the same year.
The perpetrator of the attack was a student at the school’s law school, armed with a shotgun and a knife.
Gun ownership debate
The Izhevsk school shooting reignited the gun ownership debate with calls for greater state control.
This was expressed in particular by the ombudsman of Russia, Tatiana Moskalkova, who advocated “increasing the criteria for the sale of weapons”.
Timely laws have been adopted that make the purchase of weapons as difficult as possible, but we need to increase the criteria required for their acquisition,” he said.
Violent incidents involving students have been on the rise in recent years in Russiawhere until recently these were relatively rare cases.
After the tragedy in Kazan, Putin ordered to review the rules on permitting the possession of weapons and to study their tightening.
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