At least 17 people were killed and dozens more wounded in an attack at a college in Crimea on Wednesday, when a student shot at fellow pupils before killing himself, officials said.
UPDATE
Eighteen-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov has been identified by Russian investigators as the attacker. Officials say he turned up at the technical college in the city of Kerch carrying a firearm and then began shooting. His body was later found in the college with “self-inflicted gunshot wounds.”
Crimea’s Russian-backed prime minister Sergei Aksyonov told Russian news agency TASS that the attacker was a fourth year student at the college who “acted alone”.
“It’s a colossal tragedy,” he said on television.Investigators said most of the victims were teenagers.
Earlier
The Kremlin had declared that it is considering the Crimean college explosion as a terroristic attack.
Earlier
The Guardian reports “The Russian national anti-terrorism committee, a government body, said the explosion at a polytechnic was caused by an “unidentified explosive device”, according to Russia’s Tass state news agency. The bomb blast took place in the city of Kerch, which is the entry point for a new 19km bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia. The committee said early estimates suggested that 10 people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in the explosion, which happened in the college cafeteria. Reports from witnesses quoted by local media suggested there may have been shooting and an attempt to take hostages prior to the explosion. Police have so far not commented on the incident. Russian media first reported the blast as the result of a gas explosion.
This is a developing story.
Tass/The Guardian/Euronews
