12-year-old shoots classmate dead, wounds two others in Finland

2 April 2024 06:06 pm Views - 1612

HELSINKI, April 2 (Reuters) - One child was killed and two seriously wounded in a shooting at a school outside the Finnish capital on Tuesday, police said, with a 12-year-old fellow pupil suspected of the attack taken into custody.

In the aftermath of the shooting, police cordoned off a building at the Viertola school in the Vantaa suburb of Helsinki.

The arrest was made without further violence in the suburb of Siltamaki, away from the school. Both the suspect and the weapon were now in police custody, police said.

There were no other suspects for now, police said. They provided no details of the identity of the suspect or victims, apart from saying they were all 12-year-old Finns and pupils at the school.

Education Minister Anna-Maja Henriksson broke into tears while speaking at a press conference hours after the attack.

"One 12-year-old child will never again return home from school," she said.
The two survivors were being treated for serious injuries, the Helsinki regional hospital district said in a statement without providing details.