STOCKHOLM - A man armed with a sword injured several people at a Swedish high school on Friday and one person was later detained, local authorities said.
The incident occurred on Friday afternoon at the Brinell high school, which has 450 students aged 16 to 20, in Fagersta, a town of 13,000 inhabitants in central Sweden.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
The newspaper Aftonbladet reported that at least two people had been wounded and that a person wielding a machete had been shot in the leg by police.
“We received an alarm at 1406 about suspected deadly violence and sent all available resources to the school,” a police spokesperson told Reuters.
The spokesperson said one person at the scene was later taken into custody and that there was no longer any danger to the public.
Municipal officials did not specify the number of wounded but said in a statement that police were still searching the school and that several other schools and public sites in the area had been locked down.
A news conference was initially scheduled for 5pm local time but the municipality announced it was being postponed as “a rescue operation” in response to the incident was still ongoing.
The school had just opened after summer recess and for some students it marked the first day at the senior high school.
The incident comes a year after a school shooting in Orebro, also in central Sweden, when a gunman killed 10 people before turning the weapon on himself, in the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
The Swedish government is in close contact with the police following Friday’s attack, Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said in a statement to Reuters.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said police were working intensively on the case and asked everyone to let them and the emergency services work undisturbed.
“Our thoughts are with all those affected,” he wrote in a post on X.
Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson, whose centre-left coalition holds a clear lead in opinion polls ahead of next month’s parliamentary election, said that “all of Sweden stands together with Fagersta at this difficult time”.
