Prague’s emergency response service said on X that around 25 people were injured, 11 of them seriously. The shooter was a student at the university, police said at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.
“The on-site intervention is still ongoing. At this moment we can confirm more than 15 dead and dozens injured,” Czech police said Thursday night on X, hours after the shooting was first reported. “We have no information at this time that the perpetrator is connected to any terrorist organization.”
Police said they had completed a sweep for explosives and were identifying victims. They said that they would contact embassies if foreigners were among the dead. A representative for the U.S. Embassy in Prague did not immediately comment.
Charles University, founded in 1348 and named for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, is the largest and most prestigious university in the Czech Republic. Twenty percent of its more than 49,000 students come from abroad, including many from the United States. Its buildings are spread throughout the city rather than being concentrated in a central campus. The university’s Faculty of Arts is next to the square where the shooting took place.
The Czech Republic has more permissive gun laws than most countries in Europe, even allowing concealed carry with a permit. Still, the country requires citizens to take strict tests before being able to obtain weapons. Mass killings are rare but not unheard of. In 2019, a gunman killed six people and himself at a Czech hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava. In 2015, a gunman shot eight people and himself in the town of Uhersky Brod.
Thursday’s killings are the worst in the country since it split from Slovakia in 1992, according to Agence France-Presse.
Czech President Petr Pavel said he was “shocked” by Thursday’s shootings.
“I would like to express my deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims claimed by the shooting,” Pavel posted on X.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “shocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today.”
“I express my deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the Czech people as a whole,” she said on X.
This is a developing story.
