A shooting at a high school in the central Russian city of Kazan on Tuesday May 11, has left 7 students mostly children and a teacher dead.
The attack happened 820km (510 miles) east of Moscow, in the mainly Muslim republic of Tatarstan.
Rustam Minnikhanov, Governor of Tatarstan republic where Kazan is the capital, said that four male and three female eighth-grade students died in the shooting. Minnikhanov’s press service later added that a teacher was also killed.
More than 20 others, mostly children were reportedly wounded. A 19-year-old suspect was detained. Minnikhanov said;
“The terrorist has been arrested, (he is) 19 years old. A firearm is registered in his name. Other accomplices haven’t been established, an investigation is underway.”
Amateur footage on social media, apparently filmed from a nearby building, showed people escaping from the school by jumping from second- and third-floor windows, with sounds of gunshots echoing in the schoolyard.
Russian investigators said the gunman was a Kazan resident, who is believed to have studied at the school in the past. He has not been officially named. A video on social media captured a teenager lying on the ground apparently being detained outside the building.
After the attack Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Putin had ordered the chief of Russia’s National Guard to “work out as a matter of urgency new regulations on the types of weapon that can be in civilian circulation and that can be owned by the public”.
The instruction was issued “given the type of firearm used by the shooter”, Mr Peskov said. “The fact is that sometimes types of small arms are registered as hunting weapons, which in some countries are used as assault rifles,” he explained.
