At least one dead after school shooting in southern Brazil

SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO – At least one student died after a school shooting in Brazil’s southern city of Cambe on Monday, the Parana state government said, adding that another wounded student has been hospitalised.

The perpetrator – a former student of the Professora Helena Kolody public school who entered its premises saying he wanted his school records – has been arrested, the government said.

Parana Governor Ratinho Junior declared three days of mourning and sent his public safety and education secretaries to Cambe, a city of 108,000 people located some 400km from Parana’s capital city of Curitiba.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said it is crucial that the country finds a way to build peace in schools.

“Another young life taken by hatred and violence that we can no longer tolerate inside our schools and in society,” Lula said in a Twitter post.

Earlier in 2023,

a man armed with a small axe climbed over a wall

into a creche in Southern Brazil and killed four children, and in a Sao Paulo school, a 13-year-old student stabbed a teacher to death and wounded five others.

Justice Minister Flavio Dino said after the attack that “this type of violence that has been implanted in Brazil is unacceptable”, adding that “violence was once again perpetrated in the most sacred place for children”. REUTERS