A student killed at least eight people on Monday (September 20) at the University of Perm, a city in eastern Russia, before being injured and arrested by police, the country's Investigation Committee said.  

"On September 20, a student in one of the university buildings […] opened fire on people around. As a result, eight people died and several were injured," said in a statement. this body responsible for the most important investigations in the country.

He added that the toll "was being clarified". 

Armed incidents of this type have increased in Russia in recent years, leading to tougher laws on carrying weapons.

The author was "injured during his arrest as he was putting up resistance," added the Investigation Committee, which did not immediately give any information on the shooter's motive. 

Fleeing the shooting, students jumped from the windows of the first floor of a university building, according to videos posted on social media.  

Another video, shot from a window, showed an individual dressed entirely in black opening fire and walking towards the entrance to a building.

The assailant, whose identity has been established but not disclosed, entered the campus at eleven a.m. local time (6 a.m. GMT), according to the university's press service.  

Shootings in schools or universities were rare in Russia, where gun control is strict, but they have tended to become more numerous in recent years, with President Vladimir Putin even denouncing a phenomenon imported from the United States, a perverse effect. of globalization. 

Dozens of thwarted attack plans

Last such deadly event, on May 11, 2021, a 19-year-old young man opened fire at his old school in Kazan, in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, killing nine people.

The same day, the Russian president ordered a review of the rules concerning the carrying of weapons.

The perpetrator of the attack in Kazan, who had been arrested, carried a permit for a semi-automatic weapon.    

The most serious recent tragedy dates back to October 2018, when a high school student killed 19 people before killing himself in a high school in Kerch, a town on the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. The authorities also have claimed to have foiled in recent years dozens of plans to attack schools, cases often involving teenagers. 

In February 2020, the security services (FSB) arrested two young people, born in 2005 and of Russian nationality, who were active on various websites where they defended murders and suicide.

According to investigators, they planned to attack a school in Saratov, on the Volga. 

With AFP

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