in Prague, terror and fear after the shooting which left 14 dead

In Prague, Czech Republic, 14 people were killed at a university on Thursday by a gunman who was found dead. The population is in shock.

In Prague, 14 people were killed and 25 others injured, 10 of them seriously, during a shooting at a university on Thursday, December 21. A 24-year-old man, probably a student at the establishment, whose body was found lifeless, opened fire on his comrades. The massacre took place in the middle of the afternoon, in the heart of the Czech capital. He sowed fear and caused consternation among the inhabitants.

Worry and incomprehension

All night, the university area remained cordoned off by the police to allow ambulances to come and go and the evacuation of students who barricaded themselves to escape the shooter. Andréa, a 35-year-old hotel manager, was doing her Christmas shopping when the shooting broke out. “For us, this is very shocking. We say it can happen abroad, but we don’t expect it to happen in the Czech Republic“, confides the young woman.

“We’re not used to violence. Here, we feel safe, it’s very peaceful. People don’t have weapons, so we don’t understand. For us, it makes no sense “.

Andrea, a resident of Prague

France Info

Simon, 37, also shares this dismay. “It’s scary and it worries me“, admits this resident of Prague. “This kind of thing can happen in different countries. In the United States, it’s something people talk about. People know it happens in schools and they prepare for it. But in the Czech Republic, that doesn’t happen. We didn’t expect that. Nobody knows why this happens. So it makes me feel like I don’t know what to do or don’t know how to avoid it“, he says.

“I don’t know if I should be afraid to go see my friends or if I should be afraid to go Christmas shopping. I’m more alert, I pay more attention to my surroundings and I just hope that This won’t happen again.”

Simon, resident of Prague

France Info

Rapid police intervention

The shooting occurred a few hundred meters from Old Town Square, with its illuminated Christmas tree and Christmas market popular with tourists. Bruno, who came from Italy with his wife and two sons, spent three days of family vacation in Prague. “We came here for Christmas to have fun. It turned a happy atmosphere into a nightmare. I can’t understand why someone is capable of killing people at a university where young people, like my son, come to study. This saddens me“, deplores Bruno.

The rapid intervention of the police on the spot, twelve minutes after the shooting, undoubtedly avoided an even heavier death toll. Thursday evening, the Minister of the Interior announced that the massacre was not linked to terrorism.