9 killed, 12 injured in Austria gun attack

International

NINE persons died while 12 others were injured when a 21-year-old man went on a shooting rampage at a school in Austria.

Local residents led a candlelight vigil on Tuesday night to honor the victims of a tragic school shooting that took place earlier that morning at Dreierschützengasse Secondary School in the northwestern part of Graz, Austria.

According to police, the gunman was a 21-year-old former student of the school who took his own life in a school bathroom shortly after the attack.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner confirmed that six females and three males were killed in the shooting, while a fourth female victim died later in hospital. Twelve others were injured, some seriously.

Grieving residents transformed the city’s main square into a sea of candles, holding moments of silence, lighting candles, shedding tears, and quietly praying or reflecting.

In front of Graz’s city hall, at the Archbishop Johann Fountain—the symbolic heart of the old town—the vigil became a powerful display of national grief and solidarity.

"When you hear about it, you have so much sympathy for the people, maybe you could have known someone," said Felix Platzer, a passerby at the vigil, speaking to Reuters.

He added that the shared experience of mourning helps people cope, calling the vigil an example of unity and compassion.

Austria has declared three days of national mourning and will observe a minute of silence across the country

Flags at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, where President Alexander Van der Bellen has his office, will fly at half-mast. The school remains closed until further notice.

Chancellor Christian Stocker called the tragedy a "dark day" and a "national tragedy," emphasizing that "a school is more than just a place to learn—it is a space for trust, for feeling comfortable, and for having a future."

He added that this safe space had been "violated," and stressed that "In these difficult hours, being human is our strongest point,"

The incident is now considered the deadliest mass shooting in Austria’s modern history, surpassing the 2020 Vienna attack by jihadist Kujtim Fejzulai, who killed four and injured 23, and the 2016 concert shooting in Nenzing, where a gunman killed two, injured eleven, and then took his own life.(Jean Ferlyn Pacabis, PIT Comm Intern)