Tragic Shooting at Austrian High School in Graz Leaves Multiple Dead

Seven students and an adult killed in school shooting in Austria, authorities confirm. At least eight people were killed in a school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz on Tuesday, the city's mayor confirmed.

Mayor Elke Kahr described the events as a “terrible tragedy,” the Austria Press Agency reported. It added that the fatalities were seven students and one adult. Kahr said that many people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

The perpetrator also died.

The Austrian interior ministry previously confirmed there were several casualties, but has not revealed any further details.

State broadcaster ORF reported that students and teachers were among those injured. Some 28 people were admitted to hospital for treatment in relation to the shooting, the local press said.

The suspected perpetrator, considered to be a student at this stage, killed himself when approached by armed police officers, reports claim.

A police operation was under way at the BORG high school on Dreierschuetzengasse street on Tuesday morning.

Graz Police spokesperson Sabri Yorgun said special Cobra units were among those sent to the high school after a call was received at 10 am, and that authorities were working to gain an overview of what had happened.

Other emergency services and a helicopter were dispatched to the scene.

At 11:30 am, police wrote on social network X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point.

They wrote that the situation was “secured” and it was no longer believed to be any danger.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said the shooting “is a national tragedy that deeply shocks our whole country.”

“There are no words for the pain and grief that all of us — the whole of Austria — feel now,” he wrote in a statement posted on X.

President Alexander Van der Bellen said that “this horror cannot be captured in words.”

“These were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way,” he said.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner was on his way to Graz.

“Schools are symbols for youth, hope and the future,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. “It is hard to bear when schools become places of death and violence.”

Graz is a city of some 300,000 and is the capital of the southern Austrian province of Styria.