STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – All Swedish schools and pre-schools will have to make plans to keep unauthorised people off their premises, the government said on Wednesday, as the country tries to come to terms with the worst school shooting in its history last week.
Ten people were shot dead at the Campus Risbergska school in Orebro, before the suspected perpetrator – identified by a Reuters source and Swedish media as Rickard Andersson, a 35-year-old Swedish recluse – turned a weapon on himself.
The attack has raised questions about whether security at Sweden’s schools needs to be improved. Unlike in many other countries, schools are generally seen as semi-public spaces and rarely have any controls on who can come and go.
Minister of Education Johan Pehrson told a news conference that all schools and pre-schools would have to have a plan for how to keep unauthorised people out.
“For example, it could involve…entry registry, controls and a locking system with locked doors,” he said, but added that it was up to individual schools to work out what worked best for them.
The Campus Risbergska shooter entered the school with a hunting rifle and two shotguns in what witnesses have described as a “guitar-shaped box” before he started to shoot.
Marwa, who declined to give her full name, survived the attack and helped tend to a fellow student, but said she didn’t think she would go back to the school to finish her nursing training.
“I really don’t think so,” she told Reuters. “They need to do something. It’s really strange that a person can just walk in with weapons like that without anyone noticing.”
The government will also speed up legislation that would make it easier for schools to install surveillance cameras without seeking permission, and let personnel search bags.
Sweden’s right-wing government also said last week it would seek to tighten gun laws as the attacker appeared to have used several of his own licensed rifles.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
