14-year-old girl in Russia fatally shoots classmate, injures five others before killing herself

A 14-year-old girl in 8th grade went on a shooting rampage at a school in the Russian city of Bryansk on Thursday (Dec 7) and fatally shot a classmate and wounded five others before killing herself, according to media reports citing investigators. 

Russian investigators said that preliminary data suggests that the 14-year-old brought a shotgun to school, shot a fellow pupil dead and wounded five other children and then killed herself. 

“According to preliminary investigation data, a 14-year-old girl brought a pump-action shotgun to school, from which she fired shots at her classmates,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.  

It added that those wounded had been taken to the hospital while investigators were working to establish the motive. 

The shooting took place at Gymnasium Number Five outside the centre of Bryansk. The southern Russian city near Ukraine which has also witnessed occasional shelling and drone attacks.

“An eighth-grader, a girl, brought a firearm (to school), from which she fired several times,” reported TASS citing an unnamed source, previously.  

Reuters citing an image from news outlet Mash reported that the 14-year-old shooter was sprawled on the floor, dressed all in black and was also reportedly armed with a hunting knife. 

Regional governor Alexander Bogomaz called the incident a “terrible tragedy” and reported that the five people wounded were all children who had sustained mild or moderate injuries.

“Together with law enforcement agencies, we are determining the circumstances under which the student was able to obtain and bring a weapon to school,” he added. 

While Russia typically has strict gun control, the country has witnessed several school shootings recently. 

In September last year, a gunman with a swastika on his t-shirt killed 15 people, including 11 children, and wounded 24, according to Russian investigators, at a school in the Russian city of Izhevsk where he had once been a pupil, and then committed suicide. 

In 2018, an 18-year-old student killed 20 people, mostly other students in a mass shooting at a college in Russian-occupied Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. 

(With inputs from agencies)