At least three people were killed and 11 others injured on Friday in Brazil when a man attacked two schools with a gun in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, authorities said.
Several “bandits” entered a school in Aracruz, and one of them shot at teachers who were gathered, killing two women and injuring nine others, Mayor Luis Carlos Coutinho told CBN radio.
They then went to another school, where a teenage girl was shot and killed, while two people were injured, according to the same source.
Brazil’s Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin said he was “appalled” by the attacks. “I express my solidarity with the school communities, families and friends of the victims,” he wrote on Twitter, calling for an investigation.
Alckmin will take office on Jan. 1 alongside President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who campaigned against the dramatic reduction in gun control laws during incumbent far-right President Jair’s tenure. Bolsonaro.
School shootings are relatively rare in violent Brazil. The deadliest took place on April 7, 2011, when a 24-year-old man opened fire at his former school in the western suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, killing 12 students, before killing himself.
More recently, on March 13, 2019, two former students shot and killed eight people and injured 11 others before killing themselves at a college in Suzano, in the Sao Paulo region.