STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Government offices, schools and workplaces fell silent in Sweden at midday on Tuesday in remembrance of the victims of a mass shooting at an adult education centre last week when a gunman killed 10 people before turning his weapon on himself.
Swedes, grown reluctantly accustomed to gangland bombings and shootings, were still stunned by the Feb. 4 attack, in which Rickard Andersson, a 35-year-old unemployed loner, opened fire on students and teachers at the Campus Risbergska school in the city of Orebro, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm.
It was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
Those who could not escape barricaded themselves into classrooms and hid until police had confirmed Andersson had killed himself. Survivors had to pass dead bodies and pools of blood when they were released after hours of terrified waiting.
Thousands braved the cold on Tuesday, packing Orebro’s central square for a minute of silence to honour the dead and injured.
“Right now, a week after what has happened, Sweden is a nation that is looking for an answer,” Magdalena Andersson, leader of the main opposition Social Democrat party who was attending the ceremony, told daily Expressen.
Police say they still do not know why Andersson embarked on his killing spree and that they have found nothing to suggest any ideological motive.
Andersson had been enrolled at the school in the past and he had a licence for four rifles, three of which were found with his body, police say. He appears to have had scanty social contacts, no social media presence, and no links to gang crime.
Police have yet to disclose the identity of the victims, though Reuters’ reporting pointed to eight of the 10 killed having an immigrant background, with roots in Syria, Somalia and Bosnia among other countries.
Campus Risbergska has around 2,700 students, some trying to complete a basic school education, some doing vocational courses and a large number studying Swedish for Immigrants.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Simon Johnson and Marie Mannes; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Gareth Jones)
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