By Johan Ahlander, Simon Johnson and Marie Mannes
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Government offices, schools and workplaces fell silent in Sweden at midday on Tuesday in remembrance of the victims of a mass shooting at an adult education centre last week when a gunman killed 10 people before turning his weapon on himself.
Swedes were still stunned by the Feb. 4 attack, in which Rickard Andersson, a 35-year-old unemployed loner, opened fire on students and teachers at the Campus Risbergska school in Orebro, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm.
It was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
Those who could not escape barricaded themselves into classrooms and hid until police had confirmed Andersson had killed himself. Survivors had to pass dead bodies and pools of blood when they were released after hours of terrified waiting.
Police said on Tuesday that the victims appeared to have been selected randomly and that more than 50 shots had been fired.
They said the suspect, who had been enrolled at the Risbergska school twice, had lived alone in his apartment since 2016, with little social contact. Police said they had yet to uncover his life online.
Social media posts on Tuesday showed buses and cars at a standstill on roads across Sweden at noon, while many of the country’s biggest employers paused work to observe the minute’s silence. In Orebro, thousands braved the cold, packing the central square to honour the dead and injured.
“You don’t think something like this could happen,” Inger Hogstrom-Westerling told news agency TT. “It happens in the U.S. and other countries, but you never thought it could happen in Sweden and Orebro,” she said.
Police say they still do not know why Andersson embarked on his killing spree and have found nothing to suggest any ideological motive.
They said on Tuesday that the suspect had bought ammunition and smoke grenades recently, and that they had found one rifle in his home.
Andersson appears to have no social media presence and no links to gang crime.
Police have yet to disclose the identity of the victims, though Reuters’ reporting pointed to eight of the 10 killed having an immigrant background, with roots in Syria, Somalia and Bosnia, among other countries.
‘LIKE A LITTLE FAMILY’
Six of the dead were from the same class of around 20 who were training to become assistant nurses.
“We were all close… We were like a little family,” Hellen Werme, 35, told Reuters.
Werme had left her classmates just minutes before the shooting began to do practical training in another classroom. She survived by hiding under a bed for two hours.
Although police have not identified any racist motive for the shootings, the attack has left many immigrants in Orebro on edge. A local mosque has hired a security guard and students wonder if they were targeted because of the colour of their skin.
“I’m very scared,” Fatouma, 37, told Reuters by phone. One of her classmates was shot in the attack but survived.
“Why would anyone do something like that?”
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Simon Johnson and Marie Mannes and Louise Rasmussen; Editing by Gareth Jones and Ros Russell)
