Praying for the bereaved families: Sweden's Örebro stunned after school tragedy

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"That something so terrible could have happened here." Mia Vallin can hardly grasp it. She is head of Hannaskolan, a private Christian primary and secondary school in Örebro - about 200 kilometres west of Stockholm. Her school is just two kilometres away from the Campus Risbergskaschool, where on Tuesday, a 35-year-old man opened fire; shot 11 people dead and wounded six others.

At 12.30pm on Tuesday, Vallin was having lunch in the school canteen. "We suddenly saw all kinds of emergency services driving past our school at breakneck speed. From a parent of one of our students, who knew someone who was hiding from the gunman, I then got a message about the drama unfolding a little further down the road."

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Initially, few details were known about the tragedy which unfolded a few streets away. Authorities instructed the Hannaskolan leadership to completely seal off the school building. Vallin: "We locked the doors and communicated to parents that their children were in safety. After a few hours, the students were picked up at school one by one by their fathers and mothers."

Panic

While things ended well in Hannaskolan, so precarious was the situation at Campus Risbergska, the school where a gunman roamed the corridors shooting people to death. "We heard three shots, one after another, and panicked. My teacher shouted: "Close the doors, lock them and hide," 35-year-old nursing student Hellen Werme told Swedish channel TV4 News.

The tragedy is "the worst mass shooting in Sweden's history", according to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. King Carl Gustaf laid flowers with his wife Queen Silvia at a memorial in front of the school on Wednesday and later attended a memorial service at a church in Örebro.

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The suspect is believed to have died by suicide.

Police have released few details about the suspected gunman. Media paint a picture of a hermit from the area, who legally owned a gun and had no job. He possibly had mental health problems.

Police assume that the suspect acted alone, "with no ideological motive". Officers found him dead upon entering the school, presumably killed by suicide.

Hannaskolan was open for classes again on Wednesday. "But we have to be careful," says Mia Vallin. She finds peace in her faith these days. "We pray that something like this will never happen again."

This article was translated by CNE.news and published by the Dutch daily, Reformatorisch Dagblad on February 5th, 2025