Three people are dead after a shooting near a school in Sweden today.
Locals were starting to celebrate a major Spring festival when gunshots rang out just off Uppsala’s Vaksala Square around 5pm local time.
Then a masked man was seen fleeing on an electric scooter along Hjalmar Brantingsgatan, a road that leads to it.
Shortly after 7pm, police confirmed three people had been killed. It is not yet clear how many others were injured or what condition they are in.
The victims have not been identified.
Witnesses described the gunshots as ‘sounding like fireworks’, with local media saying it happened at a hair salon.
‘I heard the bangs and immediately understood there was a shooting,’ Alexander Griedl, a local, told SVT Uppsala.
‘Everything happened so fast. It just went bang, bang, bang,’ a witness told Swedish channel TV4.
The police said: ‘As the police continue to work to identify the deceased, the police want to be clear that no relatives have been notified. The police are investigating the incident as a murder.’
Described as the ‘Cambridge of Sweden’ for its large student population, Uppsala is home to around 175,000 people.
It’s a 35-minute train ride from the capital, Stockholm, although rail services have been suspended while police hunt for the shooter.
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Helicopters are in the air and Hjalmar Brantingsgatan has been blockaded by police. Ambulances line the street.
Vaksala Square is the location of the Uppsala’s concert hall and the green listed school building home to Vaksalaskolan.
Next to Uppsala’s main train station, it also hosts market stalls.
It would usually have been busy at this time of day. But tomorrow is Valborg – or Walpurgis Night – a major Spring festival celebrated in Scandinavia.
Traditionally, people start to celebrate the day before, bringing higher than usually footfall to the area of the shooting.
Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said: ‘A brutal act of violence has occurred in central Uppsala. The police have confirmed that three people have lost their lives.
‘This is at the same time as the whole of Uppsala has begun the Walpurgis weekend. What has happened is extraordinarily serious.’
While Sweden has long been known for low crime rates, the country has one of the highest per capita rates of gun violence in the EU.
Last year, 296 shootings happened in Sweden, according to police data. In March, 50 were reported to the police.
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