Attacker, one adult killed in Slovakia school stabbing

Police in Slovakia’s Vrutky town have killed a man who attacked staff at a school in an assault that left one adult dead.

Thursday’s violence also left five people, including two children, injured, a spokeswoman for the country’s rescue services said. The school’s deputy director was killed, authorities said.

Slovak media reported that the attacker stabbed victims and was then shot by police as he ran away from the school in the town of Vrutky, 220km (137 miles) northeast of the capital Bratislava.

According to the Associated Press news agency, the attacker was identified as a 22-year-old man from the nearby town of Martin.

“He broke the glass door to get in, the staff tried to stop him and he used a knife he had brought with him,” Slovak police chief Milan Lucansky said on his official Facebook page.

“He dealt a lethal injury to a deputy principal and injured the caretaker, then he got inside the building where he caused a serious injury to a female teacher and then injured two kids with multiple stab wounds,” he said.

“He then tried to escape with the caretaker running after him. A policeman chased him, but he tried to defend himself with the knife so they used their guns and killed him.”

Although he did not go into detail about the attacker’s motives, Lucansky said the young man appeared to have “struggled with mental health problems”.

‘Sincere condolences’

The killing rocked Slovakia, a central European eurozone country of 5.4 million people, where the incident was the first violent attack of its kind in a school.

Prime Minister Igor Matovic conveyed his “sincere condolences” to the family of the victim.

President Zuzana Caputova also offered her condolences and support for “all the teachers, police officers, children and their parents affected by this difficult and fearful time”.

Slovak primary schools began reopening on June 1 under an easing of coronavirus lockdown measures.

The United School serves children from primary age up to high school.