Here’s where things stand on Tuesday 10 June 2025:

• Several people have been killed in a school shooting in Graz, Austria’s second largest city; teachers and students are among the wounded.
• Austria’s Interior Ministry says there are several fatalities but has not specified how many.
• According to local media reports, at least nine people have been killed and the suspect is dead.
• Chancellor Christian Stocker said the rampage was a “national tragedy” that shook Austria, where mass shootings are rare. “There are no words for the pain and grief that we all – all of Austria – are feeling right now,” he added.

‘This horror cannot be captured in words’: Austrian president

Alexander Van der Bellen has commented on the incident, saying that “this horror cannot be captured in words.”

“These were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way,” he noted.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner was said to be on his way to Graz.

Whole country feels ‘pain and grief’: Austrian chancellor

Christian Stocker said the shooting “is a national tragedy that deeply shocks our whole country”.

“There are no words for the pain and grief that all of us – the whole of Austria – feel now,” he said in a statement posted on X.

EU offers condolences

An EU spokesperson in Brussels says while “we seek clarity”, the bloc offers its deepest condolences to the families of the victims “and the entire city of Graz”.

Special forces and ambulances deployed, offering aid to victims

We are on our way now to the city of Graz. The latest developments from the authorities there that the operation is over, and they have deployed special forces the area.

Ambulances were deployed there as well. They are providing assistance to the families of those killed and injured.

They will be trying to figure out what exactly happened and what were the motives of the perpetrator.

If you look at the rate of mass shootings in Austria compared to other western European nations such as Germany and France, the number is very, very small.

10 killed in Graz attack including suspect: Report

We now have more information on the deadly shooting attack in Graz.

At least 10 people have now been reported dead, including the suspect, according to the Austrian news agency citing Graz Mayor Elke Kahr.

Reuters news agency carried the report.

Single person likely to be perpetrator: Police

Austrian police say they are working on the assumption that there is a sole suspect in the deadly shooting, they said in a post on X.

Attacks in public are rare in the western European nation of almost 9.2 million people.

Where did the shooting take place?

Graz is the second most populated city in Austria, about 200km (125 miles) south of Vienna.

Eight dead in school shooting: Report

Eight people have been killed, and the suspected perpetrator has also died, the Austria Press Agency is reporting citing the city’s Mayor Elke Kahr, according to The Associated Press.

It added that the fatalities were seven students and one adult. Kahr said that many people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

Kahr described the events as a “terrible tragedy”, the Austria Press Agency reported.

We will bring you more as further information becomes available.

Local police say the situation ‘secured’

In a post on X, police said that the school had been evacuated, and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point.

They wrote that the situation was “secured” and there is no longer believed to be any danger.

Police said the shots were fired at the secondary school around 10 am (0800 GMT), with special units quickly responding to the scene.

Several killed in attack: Interior ministry

The Interior Ministry says there were several fatalities following the shooting at the school in Graz, but did not specify how many.

Police said there were also injuries, but again without specifying a number. There was no immediate information on the status or identity of the perpetrator.

Graz, Austria’s second-biggest city, is located in the southeast of the country and has about 300,000 inhabitants.

Welcome to our live page

Hello, and thank you for joining our live coverage of the school shooting in the Austrian city of Graz.

Stay with our live team as we bring you all the latest developments, analyses and reactions throughout the day.

The conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democrats (SPÖ), and the liberal Neos say they have successfully completed negotiations to form a new administration – a record 151 days since the election was held in September.

The leader of the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPÖ), Herbert Kickl, called the tie-up a coalition of “losers” and called for a snap election.

Thursday’s announcement follows the longest period of coalition negotiations in Austria’s recent history, after two previous attempts to form a government failed.

The three-party government, which would be the first since the late 1940s, is due to take office next week, if all the parties approve the deal. The biggest hurdle is a vote at a Neos party meeting on Sunday, where a two-thirds majority is needed.

The new chancellor will be Christian Stocker of the ÖVP.

As he presented the new government programme with the leader of the SPÖ, Andreas Babler, and the Neos, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Stocker said the negotiations had been “perhaps the most difficult in the history of our country”.

But he said they had achieved “a breakthrough” that wasn’t “a minimal compromise”.

The three parties set out plans to avoid facing a European Union procedure for running an excess budget deficit, with measures including an increased levy on banks.

The programme also includes tougher asylum measures, including a temporary stop for family reunifications.

Stocker said there would be “an integration year for refugees” from day one of their arrival in Austria.

The three parties also said they reserved the right to impose an asylum freeze, if numbers of applications increased. They are also planning a headscarf ban for girls under 15.

The programme also emphasised that the government was “committed to a strong and better European Union”.

In a post on social media, Kickl said: “I don’t think this has ever happened before: a so-called ‘government programme’ before a government has even been formed.”

Despite the FPÖ’s unprecedented victory, topping the polls for the first time, Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen first gave the ÖVP the mandate to form a government.

At the time, the leaders of all of the other parties ruled out making an alliance with Herbert Kickl.

However, the ÖVP’s first attempt to forge a coalition with the Social Democrats and Neos failed at the beginning of January.

On 6 January, Van der Bellen gave Kickl the mandate to form a government.

But a few weeks later, the Freedom Party’s talks with the conservatives also broke down, partly due to disputes over minister posts.

Political analyst Thomas Hofer told the BBC that there had been “no base of trust” between the two parties.

The ÖVP, the Social Democrats and Neos then started a second round of negotiations, which culminated in an agreement.

Thomas Hofer says their new alliance faces challenges.

“This is of course an emergency cabinet. It had to be built quickly and one can see that looking at the programme, The main message is that they are not Herbert Kickl, but that message will not last very long. They will have to negotiate more along the way.”

Hofer says the parties “even have to guarantee inner party stability”, and that their popularity could grow if they tackle “the massive problems ahead, but those problems are also a chance for the FPÖ”, which he said had flourished in opposition.

According to opinion polls, a new election would see further gains for the Freedom Party.

Police said the suspect is a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker who was detained at the scene in Villach, a town near the border with Italy and Slovenia.

Police are yet to establish a motive but have involved extremism specialists in the investigation, a spokesman told BBC News.

The incident took place around 16:00 local time (15:00 GMT) near the town’s main square. Two of the five people injured were in a serious condition as of Saturday evening.

A delivery worker who had driven his vehicle at the attacker helped prevent more injuries, police said.

The driver – also a Syrian man – said he witnessed the attack as he was driving by and deliberately rammed the knifeman.

The suspect was arrested shortly after by two female police officers. As of Saturday evening, he was still being interrogated, police said.

Some witness reports initially indicated a potential second attacker, leading to police shutting down train travel in the attack’s immediate aftermath.

However, local police told BBC News they were confident only one knifeman was involved.

Austrian law means the attacker’s identity has not been released but police confirmed he is a 23-year-old Syrian man who lived locally.

He had a temporary residence permit and was waiting for a decision on his asylum application.

Police initially said four people were wounded but a fifth person later came forward with minor injuries.

The identity of the teenager who was killed has also not yet been disclosed.

The attack comes amid national debates over asylum laws and a political crisis following an election last year which saw the far-right Freedom Party come out on top for the first time.

However it has failed to form a coalition government, leaving Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen weighing up whether to call a snap election, form a minority government, or invite other parties or a group of experts to try and form an administration.

Herbet Kickl, the head of the Freedom Party, seized on the Villach attack, saying in a statement that Austria needs a “rigorous crackdown on asylum”.

Peter Kaiser of the centre-left Social Democratic Party – who is the governor of Carinthia, the region where Villach is located – described the attack as an “unimaginable atrocity”.

He said the stabbings should not lead to “hateful” reactions while urging the government and European Union to tighten asylum policy.

Police said they discovered cash, jewellery and gold worth over 10m euros (£8.3 million) at the woman’s house in Mödling, near Vienna.

They said the suspect is a 44-year-old Austrian citizen named only as Mariana M, who went by the name Amela.

Her 29 year-old son has been arrested and is in custody in the town of Wiener Neustadt.

Police say they believe Mariana M may have defrauded people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Police say Mariana M told one victim that a “close relative had been cursed and that she foresaw her death. In order to break this alleged curse, the accused then demanded 730,000 euros for ‘cleansing rituals'”.

They said after the victim had handed over the money to the accused in several instalments, the suspect broke off contact. Another woman then informed the victim by telephone that the “shaman” had fallen into a severe coma as a result of the ritual.

Director of Police in Lower Austria, Franz Popp, said: “In a world in which many people are looking for answers to the essential questions of life, profiteers have established themselves who claim to possess supernatural powers.”

“They exploit the trust of their victims who are in emotional or financial distress and are looking for help and support,” he added.

Police have appealed to any other victims to contact the Lower Austrian State Office of Criminal Investigation.

If the talks are successful, Austria will, for the first time, have a government led by the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPO).

The FPO has been in power before, but only as a junior coalition partner.

The party came first in September’s elections, with roughly 29% of the vote, but was then sidelined.President Van der Bellen infuriated the FPO by not tasking it with forming a government soon after the election.

At the time, the leaders of all of the other parties ruled out making an alliance with Kickl.In October, Van der Bellen gave the conservative People’s Party (OVP), which came second in the election with 26%, the task of forming a coalition.

The former leader of the OVP, Chancellor Karl Nehammer, had called Kickl a conspiracy theorist and a threat to security.But Nehammer’s attempts to form a three-party and then a two-party centrist coalition collapsed this weekend.

He then resigned and the new leader of the conservatives, Christian Stocker, said his party would be willing to hold talks with Kickl.President Van der Bellen has now tasked Kickl with forming a government.

The step is a dramatic reversal for the president, a former leader of the Green Party, who has long been critical of the FPO and has expressed reservations about Kickl as Chancellor.

On Monday, Van der Bellen said he had not taken “this step lightly”. He said he would “continue to ensure that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly observed and adhered to”.

In recent months, Van der Bellen has repeatedly said he will remain vigilant to ensure “cornerstones of democracy” including human rights, independent media and Austria’s membership of the European Union are respected.

The Freedom Party and the OVP overlap on a number of issues and both take a tough line on migration.

However they have clashed on the EU and the Freedom Party’s opposition to aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

There is no timeframe for the coalition talks, which would usually take two or three months, but could be quicker.

If the talks fail, a snap election is likely. Polls suggest that support for the Freedom Party has grown since September.

Katie Brown, 25, who uses a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, along with her father Graeme and his wife Vikki, told how they were left “stranded” in Vienna on Friday without luggage or vital medication.

The family told BBC they were left to book accommodation and an alternative flight home, leaving them thousands of euros out of pocket.

A Vienna Airport spokeswoman said “irregularities” occurred due to a failure of the airport’s wheelchair service but added that the airport would fully reimburse the family for their additional costs.

The family were offered seats on the next available Ryanair flight home.However, they were told this would not be until five days later, on New Year’s Day, meaning they would miss Katie’s 26th birthday celebrations on Hogmanay.

Instead, they paid for a Jet2 flight home on Sunday.

The airport spokeswoman said: “Due to a failure of Vienna Airport’s wheelchair service, the passengers were brought to the aircraft late, and their luggage was not offloaded. We deeply regret this incident.”

The passengers were promptly escorted by Vienna Airport staff from the departure gate to a service counter, where an alternative flight was offered at the airport’s expense. However, this offer was declined by the passengers.

“Vienna Airport will fully cover the additional costs incurred due to the passengers flight rebooking and the luggage that was not offloaded.”

The family, who had enjoyed a “lovely” Christmas break in the Austrian capital, said their flight home was initially delayed by two hours due to a technical fault.

They said they were escorted by airport assistance staff to a gate along with an 84-year-old solo passenger, who was also in a wheelchair.

After the staff failed to show up to board them, they were told the flight had been cancelled.

They later learned it had taken off without them and the solo passenger.

Graeme Brown told BBC his family were given “quite an interrogation” by passport control staff when they checked in for their replacement Jet2 flight home.

He said the security system showed the family had been stamped as leaving Austria on Friday.

Mr Brown also said Jet2 staff later described the non-removal of their luggage from the Ryanair flight as “a major security breach”.

According to flightstats.com the initial flight left Vienna almost two hours and 40 minutes behind schedule, and landed almost two-and-a-half hours late.

Ryanair policy states that passengers could be entitled to compensation if their flight is delayed by three or more hours.

The family said the airline denied any liability for the incident, instead blaming the airport’s special assistance staff.

A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “Special assistance at Vienna Airport is provided by Vienna Airport’s special assistance provider – not Ryanair.

“Unfortunately, these passengers were brought to the gate late by the special assistance provider at Vienna Airport and as flight boarding was already closed these passengers missed their flight.”

The chancellor said his party – the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) – and the Social Democrats had failed to agree on key issues.

The liberal Neos, another party involved in the talks, also pulled out on Friday.

In September, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) won an unprecedented victory in Austria’s general election, but the other parties ruled out forming a coalition with the FPÖ’s leader Herbert Kickl.

The collapse of the talks could lead to the conservatives negotiating with the far-right, or to a new election taking place, analysts have said.T

he Russia-friendly FPÖ has been in a ruling coalition before. It would likely welcome a new election as opinion polls suggest its popularity has grown further since September.

The FPÖ has said in a statement on X that three months have been lost by the coalition talks and adds that “instead of stability, we have chaos”.

The party has called for Social Democrat leader Andreas Babler to also resign and said President Alexander Van der Bellen bears “a significant share of responsibility for the chaos that has arisen and the lost time”.

The FPÖ won almost 29% of the vote in September’s election, the People’s Party came second with 26.3% and the Social Democrats third, with 21%.

There was a high turnout of 77.3% as Austrian voters took part in an election dominated by the twin issues of migration and asylum, as well as a flagging economy and the war in Ukraine.

The FPÖ’s Kickl promised to build “Fortress Austria”, to restore Austrians’ security and prosperity.

The party wants firm rules on legal immigration and it has promoted the idea of remigration, which involves sending asylum seekers to their original countries.

The FPÖ was founded by former Nazis in the 1950s.Two days before last year’s general election vote some of its candidates were caught on video at a funeral where an SS song was sung.

The party later denied the song, dating back to 1814, had any link to “National Socialist sentiments”.

Katie Brown, 25, who uses a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, along with her father Graeme and his wife Vikki, told how they were left “stranded” in Vienna on Friday without luggage or vital medication.

They told BBC Scotland News they were thousands of euros out of pocket after having to book accommodation and an alternative flight home.

Ryanair and Vienna International Airport have been asked to comment.

The family were offered seats on the next available Ryanair flight home. However, they were told this would not be until five days later, on New Year’s Day, meaning they would miss Katie’s 26th birthday celebrations on Hogmanay.

Instead, they paid for a Jet2 flight home on Sunday.

The family, who had enjoyed a “lovely” Christmas break in the Austrian capital, said their flight home was initially delayed by two hours due to a technical fault.

They said they were escorted by airport assistance staff to a gate along with an 84-year-old solo passenger, who was also in a wheelchair.

After the staff failed to show up to board them on the flight, they were told it had been cancelled. They later learned the flight had taken off without them and the solo passenger.

Katie said: “The fact that our bags – including my medication – were flown home without us is shocking.

“We were abandoned at a gate and lied to, being told the flight was cancelled when it wasn’t.

“It feels like the airline decided it was cheaper to leave us behind than to risk potentially having to pay a hefty compensation bill for delaying the flight beyond three hours.

“It looks like they made a judgement call to save money at the expense of disabled passengers. It’s disgraceful and has left us feeling completely dehumanised.”

As well as paying for an alternative flight home, the family also had to pay for emergency medication, accommodation, clothing, and essentials in one of Europe’s most expensive cities.

Graeme Brown told BBC Scotland News his family were given “quite an interrogation” by passport control staff when they checked in for their replacement Jet2 flight home.

He said the security system showed the family had been stamped as leaving Austria on Friday.

Mr Brown also said Jet2 staff later described the non-removal of their luggage from the Ryanair flight as “a major security breach”.

According to flightstats.com, the initial flight left Vienna almost two hours and 40 minutes behind schedule, and landed almost two-and-a-half hours late.

Ryanair policy states that passengers could be entitled to compensation if their flight is delayed by three or more hours.

The family said the airline denied any liability for the incident, instead blaming the airport’s special assistance staff.

They said they have not received an apology or formal explanation for the incident.