7-year-old killed, others injured after stabbing attack at Croatia school – National

A knife-wielding teenager walked into a school in Croatia’s capital on Friday, stabbing to death a 7-year-old girl and injuring three other children and their teacher, authorities said.

The attack took place at 9:50 a.m. on the last day of school before Christmas at the Precko Elementary School near Zagreb with the same name. Children between 7 and 15 years old to school.

“The attacker is a 19-year-old who is a former student of that school and still lives nearby,” said Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic. “Finally he started hurting himself. The police stopped him [dying by] suicide.”

Bozinovic said the attacker had mental problems and had made a previous attempt to kill himself.

“It is difficult to say that this person was mentally balanced,” he said.

“Five persons have been hospitalized and their lives are not in danger,” Health Minister Irena Hrstic told the media. That number includes the suspected assailant.

School attacks are rare in Croatia and the Balkans as a whole, although in May 2023, a teenager in neighboring Serbia opened fire on a school in the capital Belgrade, in which nine fellow students and a school guard were killed.

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Video footage broadcast by Croatian media on Friday showed children running away from the school building and a medical helicopter landing on the school grounds.

Authorities in Croatia declared Saturday a day of mourning and canceled some of the Christmas celebrations. Candidates for the upcoming presidential election said they are temporarily suspending their campaigns because of the tragedy.

President Zoran Milanovic said “there are no words to describe the grief over the horrible and unthinkable tragedy that is shocking us all today.”

Milanovic called for unity and an effort to ensure that schools are a safe and carefree place for children.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told a government meeting that he was “appalled” by the attack and that authorities were still working to determine exactly what happened.

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Associated Press writers Jovana Gec and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this story.

– With a file from Reuters

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