Crimea college attack: At least 19 killed and dozens injured as gunman opens fire on fellow students

Gunman identified as 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov, with fellow students painting him as a detached and angry teenager

Nineteen people have died in a gun attack and explosion at a college in the Crimean town of Kerch, with dozens more injured.

Russian authorities named the attacker as 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov, who was himself killed in the attack. His body was found in one of the classrooms.

According to those who witnessed events inside the school, shots were fired on the first floor of the college just before noon. A little later, there was an explosion in the canteen area of the ground floor. One unidentified student described the bloody scenes in a series of audio recordings published on social media: "They killed my friend right before my very eyes, and I saw how she fell. I saw the guys falling down, and I saw the blood flying around."

President Vladimir Putin called the attack “a tragic event” and held a moment of silence for the victims at an official ceremony he was attending with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the resort town of Sochi.

“It is already clear that this was a crime, and the motives and the versions of what happened are being studied carefully,” he said.

However, with the incident first reported as a gas explosion, then classed by authorities as "terrorism", before being reclassified as "mass murder", confusion about the details of the incident linger. No motive has so far been offered for the killings.


 The Kremlin's anti-terror committee confirmed an explosive device had detonated 
 (AFP/Getty)

Earlier reports suggested there may have been accomplices. Yekaterina Keizo, a journalist working for local media Kerch FM, told The Independent that witnesses spoke of two men entering the building, indicating that one of the killers could possibly still be at large.

The director of the Kerch polytechnic college, Olga Grebennikova, who left the college just before the start of the attack, also said that she also understood there were a number of attackers. They "went from classroom to classroom, shooting at students", she said.

These reports were rejected by the head of the Crimean administration, Sergei Aksyonov, but he, too, provided incorrect details, suggesting that the gunman was four years older than he was.

The Kremlin's anti-terror committee confirmed that an explosive device filled with metal objects had detonated in the canteen area. Explosive teams also found a second device in a bag, which they defused. A police source told RBC media that the attacker had left another rucksack in the college canteen, and had told fellow students that he was conducting experiments on explosive devices.

The same source claimed Mr Roslyakov was granted a firearms license in September and had potentially purchased bullets a few days before the shooting.

Fellow students painted a picture of an angry, detached young man "who hated college because of the nasty teachers" and who "hinted" he would "avenge" them. According to classmate Alexander Parasich, he had been fascinated by the 1999 Columbine high school shooting, and had talked about how weapons were freely available in the United States.

"He wasn't friends with anyone and for three years carried a knife," he told a local media oulet.

There have been a dozen major incidents in Russian schools over the past five years, but these have mostly been knife attacks. Shootings are relatively rare, owing to the difficulty in obtaining firearms.

In a video recorded by local media, school director Grebennikova said she believed she would have died had she remained inside. She likened the incident to the 2004 terrorist attack in Beslan, when armed men took over 1,000 people hostage, and 334 people died.

Like Beslan, footage from the college depicted a chaotic rescue scene. Images showed bodies carried on stretchers to ambulances, trucks and other public transport vehicles. Journalists reported there were not enough dedicated medical transport vehicles. At one point, stretchers also ran out. The local hospital also experienced a shortage of medical staff, and had appealed to medical students to come in to assist.

Kerch is a port town on the disputed Crimean peninsula. It is notable as the start point of Russia's bridge that connects annexed Crimea to the mainland, and sits at the opening of the Azov sea, which has been a source of tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Initially, Crimean officials even pointed a finger of blame at Ukraine, an explanation that always appeared far-fetched.

In the wake of the attack, Crimean authorities closed all educational facilities, declared a state of emergency in Kerch and announced three days of mourning.