A teenage student armed with two handguns and a knife opened fire in a vocational training college in Athens yesterday, wounding three people before shooting himself in the head, Greek authorities said.
The 19-year-old gunman died of his injuries after being taken to a hospital. He left a note accusing his fellow students of picking on him.
“He succumbed during the operation to save him,” senior Health Ministry official Panayiotis Efstathiou said.
PHOTO: EPA
Police said an 18-year-old student at a state college in western Athens was seriously injured and two men outside the college building were shot and lightly injured. All three were hospitalized.
Although there have been cases of stabbings at Greek schools, the shooting is unprecedented.
Police identified the gunman as an immigrant from the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia.
“He left a note saying he couldn’t take it any more,” police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis said. “It seems his motive was revenge.”
Stathis said the gunman shot his fellow student four times.
“He may have believed [the victim] was most strongly involved in the activities against him.”
He said the shooter was armed with two handguns, and a knife was found in his bag.
Police say the gunman arrived around 8:45am, a quarter of an hour after lessons had started, and shot the student victim in the courtyard before running out.
He then shot two workers at a nearby shop who tried to stop him, one in the leg and the other in the arm. Then he went to a park close to the school and shot himself in the head.
Efstathiou, the Health Ministry official, said the student who was shot by the gunman was in serious condition with gunshot wounds in the chest, arms and legs, while the other two men had lighter injuries.
The shooting comes amid a recent surge of bloody bank robberies, homicides, muggings and violent burglaries in Greece. The country has no history of violent crime, and the incidents have embarrassed Greece’s conservative government, which has been shaken by a series of financial scandals and holds a slim one-seat majority in parliament.
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
RSS