Sweden: Siltanews – News Desk
Most of the people killed by a gunman in the Swedish city of Örebro last week had an immigrant background, police have said, after the prime minister paid tribute to the victims as “people who wanted to do something good, who wanted to contribute to a better society”.
Among those understood to have been killed in Sweden’s deadliest mass shooting, which took place at an adult education center on Tuesday, were two Syrian men, both refugees, an Eritrean woman, an Iranian woman and a female teacher from Kurdistan.
Niclas Hallgren, the deputy regional police chief for Bergslagen, told SVT: “Most of the victims in the school shooting had a foreign background. Ethnicity is a circumstance that the police have taken into account since early in the investigation when assessing a possible motive.” He added: “It is too early to say that there is a specific reason behind the act.”
Prosecutors said on Monday they had confirmed the identity of the gunman, widely named in the media as Rickard Andersson, 35. He is believed to have killed himself along with 10 others when he attacked Campus Risbergska, an adult education center where he once attended classes.
In a televised speech on Sunday night, the Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, said a national one-minute silence would be held on Tuesday at midday, a week on from the attack. “Sweden is a country in mourning,” he said.