A 17-year-old girl has been killed after a teenager brandishing a sword attacked students at a school in Sweden, police have confirmed.
Three other people were wounded in the incident during classes in the central town of Fagersta on Friday afternoon, including two boys aged 12 and 17 who sustained minor injuries.
The third person, who was also under 18, was also left with minor injuries and has been discharged from hospital, Swedish news agency TT reported.
The parents of the 17-year-old girl told local newspaper Fagersta-Posten their daughter was killed in the attack.
An 18-year-old man has been arrested over the incident at Brinell high school.
Swedish police are investigating whether the suspect was involved in online communities promoting school violence, a police source said.
Detectives are investigating whether a TikTok account that posted a picture of a sword 20 minutes before the attack belonged to the person responsible, the source told Reuters.
The image appeared to have been taken in a restroom at the school, according to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
Before the image was taken down on Friday, the month-old account contained videos that referred to two episodes of mass violence in Sweden and to the far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011.
One of the videos referenced a 2015 attack in which a masked swordsman killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhättan, western Sweden, before being shot dead by police.
“The investigators are looking into various online communities that may have egged on the suspect to carry out the attack,” the police source said.
Several party leaders cancelled planned speeches on Saturday, pausing campaigning ahead of Sweden’s 13 September general election.
The prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson travelled to Fagersta to offer condolences to the bereaved family and visit the injured.
Kristersson told reporters: “What should never happen has happened again. Our thoughts go first and foremost to the families who have been incredibly hard hit by this.”
Sweden’s worst mass shooting occurred in February 2025 at a school in the south-central city of Örebro, when a gunman killed 10 people before turning the weapon on himself.
On Saturday, the police clarified that the suspect in the Fagersta attack had not been shot, contrary to what they had said on Friday.
“Service weapons were used but the perpetrator has not been injured in connection with the arrest, and has not been in need of medical attention,” a police spokesperson told the Aftonbladet daily.
Prosecutors ordered the man’s detention on suspicion of murder and several counts of attempted murder.
