A Christmas Eve in immense pain. Minute of silence, flags at half-mast, masses throughout the country… The Czech Republic pays tribute this Saturday to the victims of the massacre perpetrated two days ago at the University of Prague, the worst attack of this type committed in this country. The government asked Czechs to observe a minute of silence at noon, and bells were to ring in churches.
Thursday, a 24-year-old young man created fear by shooting students at Charles University, before committing suicide. Fourteen people died: thirteen at the time of the shooting, and one who succumbed to his injuries on Friday. In addition, 25 people were injured.
“It’s very hard for all of us”
“It is difficult to find the words to express, on the one hand, the condemnation and, on the other hand, the pain and sorrow that our entire population feels,” said Prime Minister Petr Fiala. Students lit thousands of candles in an improvised memorial in front of the Faculty of Arts and at the university headquarters, in the historic center of the capital.
The identities of the victims, students and teachers, began to be published by their relatives and the school. “It’s very hard for all of us,” the Institute of Musicology reported on Facebook after learning that its director, Lenka Hlavkova, 49, mother of two children, was among the victims. Other victims include Finnish literature expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova.
An arsenal of weapons and ammunition
Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said no link could be established between the attack and “international terrorism”, and that the attacker had acted on his own. Unknown to the police, he had a huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition. The student told a friend that he was considering suicide in Prague.
The shooter, who allegedly killed his father before carrying out this mass killing, could also have a link with the unsolved murder of a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a forest near Prague on December 15. “A ballistic analysis proved that the weapon used in the forest was identical to the one found at the home of the university shooter,” police said on X.