Police in Vantaa, a suburb of Helsinki, the capital of Finland, reported this Tuesday morning (2) that a shooting left three children injured at a school.
A minor suspected of opening fire and shooting the teenagers was arrested, added local police, who are in the area of the Viertola school.
The injured and the detained boy are 12 years old, according to police.
There is still no information on the health status of the injured children, who were taken to a hospital in the region, a police spokesman told Reuters.
The educational institution has around 800 students, from the first to the ninth year, and a team of around 90 people.
“The immediate danger is over,” Sari Laasila, director of the Viertola school, told Reuters, declining to comment further on the incident.
“The day started in a horrible way. There was a shooting at the Viertola school in Vantaa. I can only imagine the pain and worry that many families are feeling right now. The suspect in the crime has been captured,” Interior Minister Mari posted Rantanen on X.
In 2007, Pekka-Eric Auvinen shot dead six students, the school nurse, the principal and himself using a gun at Jokela High School, near Helsinki.
A year later, in 2008, Matti Saari, another student, opened fire at a vocational school in Kauhajoki, in the northwest of the country. He killed nine students and one staff member before deciding to kill himself.
Finland strengthened its weapons legislation in 2010, introducing an aptitude test for all applicants for firearms licenses. The age limit for candidates has also been changed from 18 to 20 years.
There are more than 1.5 million licensed firearms and around 430,000 license holders in the country of 5.6 million people, where hunting and target shooting are popular activities.
