‘Pain and sorrow’: Czechs mourn Prague university shooting victims

The government asked Czechs to observe a minute’s silence at noon local time on Saturday and bells were due to ring on churches across the EU and Nato member country.

A young woman at the floral tributes and candles left outside the headquarters of Charles University in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday. Photo: AP

“It is hard to find the words to express condemnation on the one hand and, on the other, the pain and sorrow that our entire society is feeling in these days before Christmas,” Prime Minister Petr Fiala said.

Tearful students have lit thousands of candles at makeshift memorials at the Faculty of Arts and the university headquarters nearby.

The school, families and friends have also started to publish the names of the victims, students and teachers alike.

“This is extremely cruel news for us all,” the Institute of Musicology said on Facebook after learning its 49-year-old director Lenka Hlavkova, a mother of two, was among the victims.

Other victims included Finnish literature expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova.

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Gunman kills at least 14, wounds dozens in unprecedented attack at Prague university

Gunman kills at least 14, wounds dozens in unprecedented attack at Prague university

The gunman also wounded 25 people, including three who were hit by bullets in the street as he fired from a balcony.

A Dutch national and two citizens of the United Arab Emirates were among the wounded.

Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said there was no link between the shooting and “international terrorism” and that the perpetrator acted on his own.

But police have since detained four people, either for threatening to copy the attack or for approving it.

Police guards at selected sites, including schools, will be in place at least until January 1, according to Interior Minister Rakusan.

Police chief Martin Vondrasek said the gunman, previously unknown to the police, had a “huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition”.

He added that inspecting the crime scene was “the most shattering experience” in his 31 years of police service.

Young women leave floral tributes and candles outside the headquarters of Charles University in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday. Photo: AP

Police started a search for the student when they found his murdered father earlier on Thursday. The student also told his friend he was planning to kill himself in Prague.

Police searched a Faculty of Arts building where he was expected to attend a lecture, but he went instead to the faculty’s main building nearby.

Police learned about the shooting at around 1400 GMT and sent a rapid response unit to the scene. Twenty minutes later, the gunman was dead.

Vondrasek said the gunman was inspired by a similar shooting in Russia, citing his social media account.

Following a search at the gunman’s home, police drew a link between him and the yet unresolved murder of a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a Prague forest on December 15.

“A ballistic analysis proved the gun used in the … forest was IDENTICAL with a gun found at the university gunman’s home,” police said on X.

A man places a candle in the square by university buildings, as people observe national mourning day following a shooting at one of Charles University’s buildings, in Prague, Czech Republic, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

This week’s shooting in Prague’s Unesco-listed historic centre was the deadliest since the Czech Republic emerged as an independent state in 1993.

Sympathy poured in from across the world with Pope Francis, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain’s King Charles and many others sending their condolences.

At the makeshift memorial, technical university student Antonin Volavka lit a candle to pay tribute to the dead.

“This could have happened to anyone. Really, it could have been me,” he said.

The Czech Republic is the world’s 12th-safest country, according to the 2023 Global Peace Index, and mass gun violence is rare.

But in 2015, a man shot seven men and a woman dead before killing himself in a restaurant in the southeast, while another gunman killed seven people in an eastern hospital and then himself in 2019.

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