Swedish police said Thursday that there were “multiple nationalities” among the victims in the country’s worst mass shooting that left 10 dead plus the gunman.
The massacre happened in the city of Orebro, west of Stockholm, on Tuesday, at an adult education centre that reportedly ran Swedish classes for immigrants.
Anna Bergkvist, who is heading the investigation, said they were still working to pin down a motive for the killing spree.
“What is the motive? … We don’t have an answer yet,” she told reporters.
Broadcaster TV4 published a video filmed by a student hiding in a bathroom in which shots can be heard outside and a person can be heard shouting: “You will leave Europe!”
Bergkvist told AFP that there were “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” among those who were killed.
The Syrian embassy expressed “its condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims, among them Syrians,” in a post on its Facebook page late on Wednesday.
Regional police chief Lars Wiren said police officers sent to the scene likened it to “an inferno”. “Dead people, injured people, screams and smoke,” he told a news conference.
Officers got the impression that “the shooting started being directed at police when they entered the school instead of students and staff”.
Police found 10 empty magazines at the site and “a large amount of unused ammunition” next to the suspected gunman, who had turned the gun on himself and was dead when police reached him.
The suspected gunman has been identified by the Swedish press as 35-year-old Rickard Andersson, but there has been no official confirmation.
Swedish media reports painted a picture of the assailant as a local man who had been living as a recluse and was suffering from psychological problems.
According to Aftonbladet newspaper, he reportedly hid his weapons in a guitar case and changed into military style garb in a bathroom, before opening fire.
Bergkvist told reporters that police believed they knew the identity of the assailant but said they would “not confirm such information” until they had verified the identity via DNA.
Police also said that several long-barrelled weapons had been recovered.
“He has a licence for four weapons, all of the four weapons have been seized. Three of those weapons were next to him” when police reached him, Bergkvist said.
Near the crime scene, people had put down notes among the tulips, roses, chrysanthemums and candles laid in memory of the Risbergska students.
“There is also lots of love in the world. It can be easy to forget after a heinous act like this…” one note read.
