Bratislava, Aug 30 (DPA) At least seven people were killed and 14 injured Monday in a shooting in the Slovak capital Bratislava, a spokeswoman for the city’s medical rescue services confirmed.
The Czech news agency CTK said the seventh victim was likely the gunman, who reportedly committed suicide. Dominika Sulkova, spokeswoman for medical services, would however not confirm the unsourced report.
Police are to brief media 2:30 p.m. (1230 GMT).
Four women and three men were among the victims who died in the gunfire, which erupted about 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) in the city’s Devinska Nova Ves residential district, which is now closed by police, Sulkova told DPA.
She said that three people were in serious condition and undergoing a surgery. A 3-year-old child was among the injured, but was ‘not in a life-threatening condition,’ she said.
Reports said that an unknown man opened fire at people and windows. The shooter’s motives were not immediately known.
Reports differed in their description of the gunman. According to a local resident, the suspect was a drug-addicted teenager, the Sme daily reported on its website.
The CTK said that the man was armed with a submachine gun and shotgun and was believed to be under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.
Ambulances and police rushed to the scene, and local authorities warned residents through a public address system to stay at home and away from windows.
‘A man, who boarded (a bus) here, said that some madman is shooting there,’ the Pravda daily’s website reported, citing a witness riding through the neighbourhood on a bus.
‘A friend of mine is there. He told me that a man in underpants and wounded by a gunshot in a shoulder ran by him,’ a reader wrote on the Sme daily’s discussion forum. ‘Lots of ambulances, policemen with guns hidden behind the corners,’ another entry read.
The incident has left Slovakia in shock, as mass shootings are unusual in the former communist central European country of 5.4 million.
