Key takeaways:
- Several people were wounded Friday after an assailant armed with a sword entered Brinell School in Fagersta, central Sweden.
- Police arrested one man and said there was no current danger to the public, while Swedish media reports that the suspect was shot in the leg were not officially confirmed.
- Fagersta municipality said police searched the school and nearby schools were locked down; the BBC reported that eight other schools were affected.
Several people were injured Friday when a person armed with a sword entered a high school in central Sweden and attacked people, local authorities said. Police arrested one man after the incident at Brinell School in Fagersta and said there was no current danger to the public.
Fagersta municipality said in a statement that “an assailant armed with a sword has entered Brinellskolan [school] and wounded several people.” The municipality did not specify how many people were injured.
Police said they received a call about “a case of ongoing deadly violence at a school in Fagersta” early Friday afternoon. Officers were called to the scene just after 2 p.m. local time, according to the BBC. Police spokesman Pelle Vamstad, quoted by the TT news agency, said an alarm was received early in the afternoon and officers rushed to the school.
The suspect was taken into custody, authorities said. Swedish media reported that the suspect may have been shot in the leg by police, but that had not been officially confirmed. Aftonbladet reported that a person wielding a machete had been shot in the leg by police, Al Jazeera reported, while the BBC said some Swedish media reports described the suspect as being shot in the leg.
Brinell School has about 450 students aged 16 to 20, Reuters reported. Fagersta, a small city of about 12,000 people, saw a large emergency response outside the school, with public broadcaster SVT reporting that ambulances, police cars and a police helicopter were at the scene.
Police said they were continuing to work at the school with several resources and urged the public to respect roadblocks and follow police instructions. Vamstad said investigators would look for camera footage that could be used in the preliminary investigation.
Fagersta municipality said police were searching the building. It also said other schools in the area had been placed under lockdown measures. The BBC reported that eight other schools were locked down.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the attack a “serious incident” in a post on X. “A serious incident has occurred today in Fagersta at a school, right after the summer break,” he said, according to Al Jazeera. “We do not yet know what lies behind the act, but we know that the police are working very intensively.”
Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said the government was closely following the situation. “The police are on site and are working very intensively on the incident. The government is in close contact with the police and is monitoring developments on an ongoing basis,” he said.
Sweden has seen several high-profile attacks at educational institutions in recent years, Al Jazeera reported. In February 2025, a 35-year-old man killed 10 people at an adult education centre in Orebro in what police described as Sweden’s worst mass shooting. Police said that attack was motivated by the killer’s wish to end his life because of financial and psychological problems.
In March 2022, an 18-year-old student fatally stabbed two teachers at a secondary school in the southern city of Malmo. In October 2015, three people were killed in a racially motivated attack at a school in the western town of Trollhattan by a sword-wielding assailant who was killed by police.
Be First to Comment