Swedish high school sword attack injures three; police detain former student
By Philip O'Connor, Johan Ahlander and Marie Mannes
FAGERSTA, Sweden (Reuters) - A man armed with a sword attacked a high school in central Sweden on Friday afternoon, severely injuring two teenage boys and a third person before police took a suspect into custody, authorities said.
The alarm came at 2:06 p.m. (1206 GMT) at Brinell high school in Fagersta, a town of about 13,000 people. The school had just reopened after summer break, and for some students Friday was their first day at the senior high school. Police said they sent all available resources to the school and that there was no longer a danger to the public.
“We received an alarm about suspected deadly violence and sent all available resources to the school,” a police spokesperson told Reuters.
Jonas Cederberg, director of health and medical services for Vastmanland county, said two people had arrived for treatment with serious injuries and a third was on the way. “As they haven't yet arrived, the extent of their injuries remains unclear at this stage,” he said.
Public broadcaster SVT reported, citing unnamed sources, that the detained suspect was an 18-year-old former student at the school with a previous assault conviction. He was said to have been carrying a sword and wearing a helmet during the attack. The daily Expressen reported that police had shot the suspect, but Reuters could not immediately confirm that.
Student Abdulrahem Salmo told SVT he saw a victim with a bloody stab wound in the arm. “Then people called the police and we just all ran from there because we were afraid,” he said.
Madelene Jansson, whose daughter was at the school, said she first got a text message that somebody had been stabbed and that police were on the way. “Then it all just went off. It feels unreal,” she told local newspaper Fagersta-posten.
Police cordoned off the school, which has about 450 students aged 16 to 20. Several other schools and public buildings in Fagersta were briefly placed in lockdown before the lockdown was lifted and students began leaving the building. The county authority said it had moved to “high alert status” to marshal resources and get the clearest possible picture of the situation.
The attack lands at a sensitive moment for Sweden, which is still haunted by last year's school shooting in Orebro, also in central Sweden, where a gunman killed 10 people before turning the weapon on himself. It also recalled the 2015 case of a masked swordsman who killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in western Sweden before being shot dead by police, an attack later described as racially motivated.
With Sweden's parliamentary election less than a month away, the violence is likely to intensify debate over school safety and policing. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson cancelled a planned speech on Saturday. “Our thoughts are with all those affected,” he wrote on social media platform X.
Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said the government was in close contact with the police. Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson, whose center-left coalition holds a clear lead in opinion polls, said: “All of Sweden stands together with Fagersta at this difficult time.”