A knife-wielding 18-year-old burst into a daycare center in Brazil on Tuesday, killing three children and two staff members, according to local police, shocking the small southern community.
According to police in Saudades, a town of 10,000 people in Santa Catarina province, the attacker then turned his massive knife on himself, gashing his own throat, abdomen, and torso.
They said in a statement that he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition.
The gunman had no criminal record, according to authorities, and there was no indication of a motive for the heinous assault.
While the ages of the children were not disclosed, local media confirmed that the daycare was for children aged six months to two years.
Outside the daycare, where police and emergency workers had cordoned off the scene, police chief Jeronimo Marcal Ferreira told journalists that a fourth child had suffered light wounds.
Three days of mourning have been announced by Governor Daniela Reinehr throughout the province.
The most recent deadly school attack in Brazil occurred in March 2019, when two former students opened fire at a high school in the southeastern town of Suzano, near Sao Paulo, killing eight people before killing themselves.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
