Caption: Police officers and emergency units guard the entrance of the “Precko” primary school after a stabbing attack in Zagreb on Friday. Photo: AFP
A seven-year-old pupil was killed and several others injured in a stabbing attack at a school in the Croatian capital Zagreb on Friday, with a 19-year-old man arrested as a suspect, authorities said.
Parents and pupils voiced shock and anger and police sealed off the Precko primary school after the attack, thought to be the first such school atrocity of its kind in the Balkan country.
“A total of six people were injured of whom unfortunately one child has died on the spot after intensive efforts to revive them,” Health Minister Irena Hrstic told reporters.
“The deceased child is seven years old,” she added.
Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said the suspect was a 19-year-old former student of the school.
Following the attack, the suspect fled and hid at a nearby healthcare centre, where he tried to commit suicide with a knife and was apprehended by police, the minister added.
The suspect has a record of mental disorders and a year ago attempted suicide, said Bozinovic.
The minister said a preliminary investigation indicated that the attack happened in a school hallway, not a classroom.
‘Speechless from shock’
Parents quoted by state-run broadcaster HRT said pupils had just finished their school breakfast when they saw a young man beating a boy and then panic broke out.
“I heard from my sister that there was no one at the entrance and that the attacker entered, breaking into a first-grade classroom and then into a fifth-grade class,” Filip, 14, told AFP outside the school, referring to his sister who was a first-grade pupil.
Filip — who attends the school in the afternoon — said other first graders leaving the scene were “speechless from shock”.
Others called for more security after the attack.
“We must have fences. Today there is everything, radars, detectors, cameras, analytics, AI… But what do we have? A man enters an open, unprotected school!” parent Marko Sikirica told reporters, looking visibly shaken.
All of the injured were being treated at hospitals and were in stable condition, according to the health minister.
The alleged attacker was also injured during the incident, she added.
“We are shocked, as is the entire Croatian public, with the horrible tragedy at 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 following the attack.
Around midday, about a dozen police cars with their lights on were parked in front the school, according to an AFP reporter.
The area was sealed off and forensic experts dressed in white overalls were collecting evidence from the school yard.
Fatal attacks on the public are rare in Croatia.
In July, a gunman killed six people at a nursing home in eastern Croatia’s Daruvar in an attack that horrified the Balkan country.
Last year neighbouring Serbia was rocked by back-to-back mass shootings, including a massacre at a school in the capital in Belgrade in which 10 people were killed.
Croatian authorities said they planned to hold a national day of mourning on Saturday. (AFP)
