School shooting in Argentina leaves one dead, eight wounded

A 15-year-old boy opened fire in a school in Argentina Monday, killing another pupil and wounding eight other people in a rare burst of US-style violence, officials said.

The assailant was taken into custody after the shooting in the Mariano Moreno School in the central town of San Cristobal, the Santa Fe provincial government said.

“I went upstairs, and just as I was about to come down, some students saw a boy come out of the bathroom with a gun and started screaming,” Priscila, a student at the school, told local broadcaster Radio Con Vos. “He started shooting into the air and we all ran out.”

Six students were treated for superficial injuries sustained while fleeing the scene and are all out of danger, the ministry said.

Two other students were transferred to the Rafaela Regional Hospital, one in serious though stable condition.

The identities of the assailant and the victims were not immediately released.

The shooting happened as students waited to raise the national flag, a ritual performed daily before classes begin at the school in the town of some 16,000 residents.

The weapon used by the assailant “is believed to be a shotgun,” Ramiro Munoz, San Cristobal government secretary, told TN television.

Classes were suspended and the students sent home.

“This is a very, very sad and deeply shocking moment. Above all, we want to offer our support to the family of Ian, the young man who lost his life today,” said Pablo Cococcioni, provincial justice and security minister.

Regarding the suspected assailant, “he has no criminal record; we had no reason to intervene throughout his entire school career,” Cococcioni told a news conference.

However, he revealed the shooter “was going through a very complex private family situation,” leading authorities to understand “this was not a school-related conflict.”

He added: “It’s very difficult to explain these events — even more so when they happen in a school setting. This is something completely extraordinary, something we never expected.”

Previous school shootings in Argentina included the killing in 2000 of one student in Rafael Calzada and three in 2004 in Carmen de Patagones, both in Buenos Aires province.