Two Teachers Killed In Knife Attack At Swedish School

Two teachers have died following a violent incident at a high school in southern Sweden in which both were stabbed.

The two women in their 50s were attacked at the school in Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, late on Monday, said police chief Petra Stenkula. Both women were taken to hospital but later died from their injuries.

An 18-year-old student at the school has been arrested on suspicion of murder, at this point there is no clear indication of a motive behind the attack.

Local media reported that the alleged attacker had called emergency services himself to report the attack and give police his location. The reports also state that the suspect was armed with a knife, an axe and a hammer.

The suspect was arrested at the scene without incident. Ms. Stenkula said police were investigating claims that the young man had turned himself in following the attack, confirming that the arrested man had no prior police record.

Authorities believe that the suspect acted alone based on their initial assessment of the evidence.

“A lot of work remains ahead of us to understand what happened and the motivation behind this appalling act,” said Åsa Nilsson, part of the team heading up the investigation.

Attacks in schools are generally quite rare in Sweden, but this is now the third such incident in little over six months. A 16-year-old student was arrested in January for stabbing a teacher and a fellow student at a school in the southern Swedish city of Kristianstad, and last August a 15-year-old was arrested following another knife attack on a teacher in Eslöv, also located in the south of the country.