Attack on Crimea school kills 17

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in an attack at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Officials initially said an “unidentified explosive device” detonated, but now say all the victims died of gunshot wounds at the technical college in Kerch.

Russian investigators said an 18-year-old student was responsible for the attack and that he had killed himself.

He has been identified as Vladislav Roslyakov.

Roslyakov is believed to have opened fire on those inside the building, before killing himself.

The incident had initially been described as a "terrorist act", but Russia’s investigative committee has now reclassified it as "mass murder".

National guard units were sent to the scene.

A local official said most of the victims were students of the technical college, which is a vocational school for 850 teenagers.

Victims have been taken to hospital, and a major emergency response operation launched.

Four military planes were ready to evacuate the wounded and military hospital facilities were ready to accept victims if necessary, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

Investigators had initially released a statement saying an explosive device filled with "metal objects" had detonated in the dining area.

The director of the college, who was not at the scene at the time of the attack, told Russian media that unknown armed men had broken into the building. She compared it to the school siege of Beslan in 2004, during which about 330 people died.

“There were lots of corpses, corpses of kids, a real terrorist attack,” she said.

Reuters news agency said that schools and pre-schools were being evacuated in the city.

Crimea, officially part of Ukraine, was seized by Russia in 2014 and annexed after a disputed vote that was widely condemned by the international community.

Ukraine and Russia have been on frosty terms ever since.

Kerch is situated at the point where Russia built a bridge between the peninsula and Russia.

The speaker of the Russia-backed Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstantinov, suggested Kiev may have been behind the attack, saying "the entire evil inflicted on the land of Crimea is coming from the official Ukrainian authorities.”

Source: BBC