At least 10 people are dead after two young men attacked a public school in southern Brazil on Wednesday. More than 20 other people were reported injured.
The attackers targeted the Professor Raul Brasil state school in Suzano, near the city of Sao Paulo.
Reports say the shooting started at around 9:30 in the morning. One witness told the Globo Group that the gunmen acted during a break between classes, when many students were eating.
Globo said there was no information immediately available about the shooters’ connection to the school or a reason for the attack.
Official records show that the school has 358 students in grades 6 through 9 and 693 students in grades 10 through 12.
By midday Wednesday, officials confirmed 10 people were killed. Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria said the dead included six students and two teachers. The gunmen took their own lives, officials said.
Inside the school, police officials found a handgun and bottles that appeared to be Molotov cocktails, known as bottle bombs. Globo reported that a witness said he saw one of the attackers with a gun and the other with a knife.
Brazil, the biggest nation in Latin America, has the largest number of homicide deaths in the world each year. But school shootings are rare.
The attack comes after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced that the country’s gun ownership controls would be eased.
I’m Jonathan Evans.
Jonathan Evans adapted this story for Learning English from Associated Press and Globo news reports. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story
homicide – n. the act of killing another person
