Police in Sweden said Saturday that the victim killed in a sword attack at a school in the country’s center was a 17-year-old girl.
The attack unfolded Friday at Brinell School in Fagersta, northwest of Stockholm, while classes were underway. Authorities said an 18-year-old man armed with a sword carried out the assault.
One person died in the incident, and three others were injured, including two who suffered serious wounds.
Police said the suspect has been taken into custody and that investigators are treating the case as murder and attempted murder.
Authorities also said they currently have no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack.
Västmanland County, where Fagersta is located, said the two boys who were seriously injured are 12 and 17 years old.
A third victim, also a minor, sustained minor injuries and has since been released from the hospital, the Swedish news agency TT reported.
The school’s principal told local broadcaster P4 Västmanland on Saturday that the attacker was a student at Brinell School.
The police said they fired shots during its action on Friday but the attacker was not hit.
On Saturday morning, around 70 people gathered at the memorial site that the municipality prepared, carrying flowers and lighting candles, TT reported.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who visited the site on Saturday, expressed solidarity with the families affected by the attack and with those impacted by previous school attacks in Sweden.
“What must never happen has happened again,” Kristersson said.
Kristersson was joined in Fagersta by Magdalena Andersson, leader of the main opposition Social Democrats.
With Sweden’s parliamentary election due in September, political parties suspended campaign events on Saturday.
Kristersson also invited all party leaders to a meeting to discuss the progress of the investigation.
There was no official information on the attacker’s possible motive.
Sweden’s national police said that investigators have already carried out two house searches in connection with the suspect. Many witnesses were expected to be interviewed as part of the investigation.
The region went into a state of emergency on Friday, but it had ended by Saturday.
Sweden has seen a series of violent school attacks over the years.
Last year, 11 people, including the gunman, died after an attack at an education center in Örebro in central Sweden, leading the government to propose tougher gun laws.
It’s considered to be the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.
In 2022, an 18-year-old man attacked two female teachers with a knife and an ax in a school in Malmo, killing them.
In 2015, a 21-year-old local man rampaged through a school in the southern industrial city of Trollhattan, stabbing three people to death before being fatally shot by police.
Authorities called it a racist hate crime, saying he methodically selected dark-skinned victims at Trollhattan’s Kronan school, where most students are foreign-born.
