
Austria shooting LIVE: Girl, 15, named as first victim after ex-pupil, 21, killed 10 & sent mum ‘sick farewell vid'
SCHOOL MASSACRE Austria shooting LIVE: Girl, 15, named as first victim after ex-pupil, 21, killed 10 & sent mum 'sick farewell vid'
A TEEN girl has been named as the first victim of the tragic mass shooting in Austria that left 11 people dead.
Lea Bajrami, 15 was killed at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school in what marked the country's worst shooting rampage in modern history.
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Lea Bajrami was killed yesterday
Credit: Facebook
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She was one of the six girls to be killed in the horror shooting
Credit: Facebook
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Mourners light candles in Graz's main square on Tuesday evening
Credit: AP
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Policemen are seen on a street close to the school
Credit: AFP
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Paramedics are seen on the street after multiple people were killed
Credit: AFP
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Family members reunite following the deadly school shooting in Graz
Credit: Reuters
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BORG Dreierschützengasse in Graz, where the shooting took place
Credit: Google maps
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Paying tributes to a young Lea, her aunt Muhabi posted a picture and wrote: "With a broken heart and great pain, we inform family, friends that our niece, Lea Ilir Bajrami tragically lost her life in the attack in Graz, Austria.
"We pray for her soul and express our gratitude to all those who share our pain in these difficult times."
Lea was one of the six girls to be killed alongside three boys and a woman.
Another 11 are seriously injured and in hospital receiving treatment.
A 21-year-old shooter, identified as Artur A., terrorised the high school in Graz before turning the gun on himself.
The attacker also recorded a video for his mother talking about his imminent crime and saying he was acting "of his own free will", reports Heute.
He even left a chilling suicide note at his residence in the wider Graz region.
Friends speaking to local media suggested the shooting could be an act of revenge, and that he might have been looking for someone to blame after failing to pass the sixth form.
In the suicide note, he reportedly revealed that he had felt "bullied".
Horrifying video from the scene yesterday showed pupils hiding in a classroom as gunshots rang out nearby.
Other clips showed students running for their lives as heavily armed cops made their way inside the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school.
A dad told local media that one of his sons lay down on the floor and pretended to be dead to escape gunfire.
The gunman was armed with two legally-owned weapons - a Glock pistol and a shotgun.
The lone shooter was found dead in a bathroom after turning a gun on himself, the Austrian interior minister confirmed.
He was not known to police, and a motive is yet to be officially confirmed.
Senior government officials - including Chancellor Christian Stocker - yesterday attended a memorial in Graz Cathedral to mourn the loss of lives.
The Austrian government has now declared a three-day mourning period.
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The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
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A gunman who killed 10 people at his former school in the Austrian city of Graz was an 'obsessive online first-person shooter', according to police, who gave detailed information for the first time about how he had planned the attack. The 21-year-old Austrian, who shot dead 10 people and then himself on Tuesday morning after going on a rampage at the school close to the city centre, had spent much of his free time playing what were described by police as 'ego shooting' online video games, in which participants typically use virtual firearms to kill enemies. Police said they believed the online community of players formed his main social contacts and that he was otherwise a loner who kept to himself. It emerged that among the people killed by the man, identified by the Austrian and German media as Arthur A, was one of his former teachers. Police said it was unknown if he had deliberately targeted her. 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A search of the flat where he lived with his mother in a suburb south of Graz had uncovered a suicide note 'directed as an apology towards his family'. The first details of some of the victims began emerging on Wednesday evening. A 15-year-old Bosnian-Austrian girl called Hana was one of the first to be killed, her family said. She had been preparing to give a lecture to her class. Speaking on behalf of her Bosnian Muslim family, Sabahudin Hasić, a local imam, said they were 'utterly destroyed, as is our whole community. This deed is completely unimaginable.' Hana had wanted to study medicine, he said, describing her as a 'sunshine'. In a post on social media, her father wrote: 'My little mouse, may God give you paradise'. Standing next to her in class had been Lea B, who was also killed. The 15-year-old's family had come to Austria from Kosovo, and she was born in Austria. Sokol Haliti, the mayor of the family's home town in Viti, Kosovo, told Austrian media that the community, where her father was born and where her grandparents still live, was in mourning. 'It is a terrible tragedy. Not only for Austria. Lea was also one of us,' he said.


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