They were killed at an adult education centre in the city of Orebro on Tuesday, about 125 miles (200km) from Stockholm, in an attack that has sent shockwaves through Sweden.

All of the victims lived in Orebro, but so far authorities have declined to share their identities or any other details about them.

Police also confirmed on Friday that the suspected gunman was a 35-year-old man from the area. He has been named widely in Swedish media as Rickard Andersson.

Anna Bergkvist, the head of the police investigation, told the BBC on Thursday that suspect had killed himself inside the school.

Police have confirmed that the suspect owned four rifles legally, three of which were found inside the school after the attack alongside 10 empty magazines.

Sweden’s coalition government on Friday announced plans to strengthen the country’s laws, making it harder to purchase guns and restricting certain types of rifle.

In the absence of official confirmation of the victims’ identities, information has come out instead through their families and communities.

Among them was Salim Isker, a 29-year-old man who fled the conflict in Syria in 2015 with his mother and sister after his father was killed there.

Isker was studying at the Risbergska centre, where the attack happened – a school popular with immigrants learning Swedish and other subjects.

Isker’s fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, attended a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night along with his mother and other members of his family.

Jacob Kasselia, the priest at the Syrian Orthodox church attended by Isker and his family, told the BBC he was a “simply a good man”.

“He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community,” Kasselia said.

Bassam Al Sheleh, a 48-year-old baker and cook and father of two, has also been named by Swedish media as one of the victims of the attack.

He was reportedly studying at the Risbergska centre to improve his English.

A national of Bosnia and Herzegovina was killed and another was injured, the Bosnian foreign ministry said, citing information shared by Orebro residents.

In a post on social media on Friday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson acknowledged that the event had caused fear among immigrant communities, and urged people to “unite and stand behind all that we hold dear together”.

“My thoughts are with the relatives who have now received the call that is the worst one can get. To you, I want to say: you are not alone. We stand beside you,” he wrote.

The gunman’s motive remains unknown. Video filmed inside the building during the attack and published by Swedish media appeared to record someone using anti-immigrant sentiments, but the footage has not been confirmed as accurate by the authorities.

Members of Orebro’s Middle Eastern immigrant communities have told the BBC they are feeling vulnerable and have been taking additional precautions in the days since the attack.

Sweden’s centre-right coalition, which relies on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats party, said on Friday it would seek to increase vetting around gun purchases and ban certain types of weapon.

“There are certain types of weapons that are so dangerous that they should only be possessed for civilian purposes as an exception,” the government said in a statement.

Prime Minister Kristersson, on a visit to Latvia, told reporters the government had to “ensure that only the right people have guns in Sweden”.

The Sweden Democrats said that it agreed with proposals to amend the law, including greater restrictions on access to semi-automatic weapons.

“The horrific act of violence in Orebro raises several key questions about gun legislation,” the party said in a statement.

The AR-15, a particular style of semi-automatic rifle that is both powerful and can carry large magazines, was singled out by the government as an example of weapons that could be restricted.

Under current Swedish gun laws, anyone over 18 who does not have a criminal record can apply for a permit for a shotgun, handgun or semi-automatic rifle.

They must justify to the police why they need a gun. People over 20 can apply for a special dispensation to own a fully automatic weapon.

Around 580,000 Swedes have a weapons licence out of a population of around 10.5 million, according to figures from Swedish broadcaster SVT.

A 2017 Swiss study found there were about 2.3 million guns held by civilians in Sweden. That is around 23 guns per 100 people, compared with 29 in Norway and 120 per 100 in the US.

To obtain a hunting licence in Sweden, a theory and practical test is required. About 280,000 Swedes have one.

Sweden has a relatively high level of gun ownership and gun crime, by European standards, though most weapons are legally owned and used for hunting.

Gun crime is mostly associated with gangs, who have also taken to using bombs to target one another.

Non-gang-related gun crime is less common, and Tuesday’s attack the nation’s first school shooting and its worst mass shooting. A total of four people were killed in two separate school stabbings in 2015 and 2022.

It was the first information about those murdered, and it came from two embassies rather than police, who said only that there were victims of a number of nationalities.

Police said the suspected gunman, named locally as 35-year-old Rickard Andersson, was found dead afterwards, with three guns by his side.

The regional police chief said police faced an “inferno” when they entered the school buildings: “Dead people, screams and smoke.”

Lars Wiren spoke of a scene of chaos at Risbergska school, with people running in and out of a very large complex that stretched over about 17,000 sq m.

Anna Bergqvist, the head of the police investigation, told the BBC police could confirm only that people of multiple nationalities and ages were caught up in the shooting.

One Bosnian national was killed and another wounded, the Bosnian embassy said. Ambassador Bojan Sosic laid flowers outside the school in Orebro on Thursday.

The Syrian embassy gave no details of the number of Syrians affected, but said: “We offer our sincere condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims, including dear Syrian citizens, and to the friendly Swedish people.”

However, it soon emerged that Salim Iskef, a 29-year-old Orthodox Christian who fled the war in Syria in 2015, was one of the 10 victims.

Santa Maria church in Orebro said his life had ended tragically in the shooting.

Jacob Kasselia, the priest at Orebro’s Syrian Orthodox church, told the BBC that Mr Iskef was a kind and thoughtful young man who had arrived from Aleppo in 2015 and was due to get married this summer.

Swedish reports said he had become a Swedish citizen.

The priest said Mr Iskef’s fiancée had been “very badly affected” by the murder.

“She is going through a very difficult, very dark experience,” Mr Kasselia said.

Mr Iskef’s aunt told Arabic-language website Alkompis he had made a video call to his mother to say he had been shot and asked her to look after his fiancée.

The Bosnian embassy said it had chosen to wait for official information from police, although it had relevant information from Orebro’s Bosnian community.

There has been some frustration in Orebro at the slow pace at which police have been releasing information about their inquiry.

“I find it odd, to say the least, that the police choose to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens, from respective embassies,” Ambassador Sosic told the BBC. He described the Bosnian community as among the best integrated in Sweden.

Police in Orebro say the alarm was raised at 12:33 (11:33 GMT) on Tuesday and after about five minutes the first patrols had reached the school, which sits on a large education campus about 200km (124 miles) west of Stockholm.

Police chief Lars Wiren said 130 police officers had eventually reached the school and found an “inferno”.

He told the BBC that there was no evidence bombs had been detonated, but said there was thick smoke that could have come from the suspect setting fires or smoke grenades.

He said they believed the suspect had fired at police but that officers did not fire back. The gunman was found dead at the scene over an hour later.

Police investigator Anna Bergqvist said that the suspect had killed himself.

She confirmed that three guns were found at the scene next to the gunman, of a total of four known to be legally registered to the suspect.

However, she refused to comment on the types of guns or ammunition used.

Police remain tight-lipped about both the suspect and the possible motive behind the attack.

Anna Bergqvist explained that the delay in naming the suspect was because of the wait for DNA samples to be matched.

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects and would not normally do so ahead of charges being laid, but Ms Bergqvist said they expected to make an exception in this case and release a name in the coming days.

Risbergska school provides adult education for people aged over 20 who did not finish primary or secondary school, as well as Swedish classes for immigrants.

Young residents in Orebro had already expressed fears of a racial element to the shooting, and the Syrian statement confirmed that immigrants were among the victims.

Sweden’s TV4 channel broadcast a video recorded from a school toilet during the gun attack, in which the words “away from Europe!” can be heard.

It is not clear who shouted the words and police have been careful not to discuss a motive.

However, Ms Bergqvist appeared to row back the initial statement from authorities on Tuesday that the motive for the attack was not ideological.

“Why they said that, I cannot comment,” she said. “We are looking at different motives, we will declare it when we have it.”

Rickard Andersson has been described locally as a recluse and one report by Swedish website Aftonbladet suggested his attack may have targeted local social services.

A source told the site that he had argued with a social worker after he had lost his welfare benefits because he had not done enough to find work.

Police on Tuesday had said that the suspect had no previous convictions, no apparent links to gangs and they did not believe the attack was motivated by terrorism.

“The police say this man acted alone,” the priest said. “But this hate, it is coming from somewhere.”

A member of Kasselia’s congregation, 29-year-old Salim Iskef, was among those murdered in Orebro on Tuesday in Sweden’s first school shooting and the worst mass shooting in the country’s history. The gunman killed 10 students at an adult learning centre and then himself.

Among the dead are Syrians and Bosnians, according to residents and the embassies of those countries, but the police in Orebro have not given any details of the victims publicly.

Kasselia described Iskef as kind and thoughtful, keen to help other members of the community. He came to Sweden with his mother and sister, the priest said – refugees from Aleppo, where his father was killed in the war. Iskef was studying Swedish at the Risbergska school, the target of Tuesday’s attack.

“He was simply a good man,” the priest said. “He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community.”

The night after the attack, Kasselia sat with Iskef’s family to console them. Iskef was engaged and due to be married this summer. His fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, was “very badly affected”, the priest said, and was “going through a very difficult, very dark experience”.

At a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night, Elia broke down in screams and tears and had to be carried out of the church.

In the days since the shooting, there has been a striking lack of information from the authorities. On Thursday night, police had still not confirmed the identity of the gunman – widely reported by Swedish media to be 35-year-old local Rickard Andersson – nor any details about his motive or the victims.

In a statement issued early on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the attack, police said the shooter did not appear to be motivated by any ideology. On Thursday, Anna Bergkvist, who is leading the police investigation, appeared to walk the statement back.

“Why they said that, I cannot comment,” she told the BBC. “We are looking at different motives and we will declare it when we have it.”

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro’s immigrant communities over the past few days.

“We are getting all our information from the media and I don’t know why,” said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began.

“We need more information,” she said. “We don’t know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?”

Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter – something so unbelievable to her she thought at first it was a prank.

“We started to run and then I heard the gunshots,” she said. “One at first, then tak tak tak – maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest.”

Afram, who immigrated from Syria to Orebro as a child, said she was afraid for the first time to send her three children to school in Sweden.

Zaki Aydin, a 50-year-old Syriac language teacher in Orebro, said he was afraid for the first time for his young students, who are mostly from the Middle East. “We are foreigners, we have to be careful now,” he said.

Aydin used to have the doors of his classroom and the church building open when he taught. “Now we are closing them,” he said. “And yesterday I asked someone to stand outside to prevent anyone we didn’t know already from coming in.”

One of the pupils at the school, 18-year-old Gabriel, said a “nightmare had come true” for Orebro.

“The problem is we have no motive, only speculation,” he said. “A lot of people my age are frightened to go to school, we feel like Sweden has become like America. The things you see on television have happened here.”

In the absence of any official news about the motive, all that the residents here in Orebro know is that the killer appears to have been a reclusive white Swedish man and that he targeted a school with a large immigrant student base.

Tomas Poletti Lundstrom, an academic researcher in racism at Uppsala University, who happens to live just a few minutes from the site of the attack and heard police helicopters fly over his home on Tuesday, said Orebro was facing a “deeply horrible time”.

“You can really sense it everywhere here, it is affecting everyone,” Lundstrom said. “We don’t know the motives of the shooter yet, but we are living in a very racist time and this is a school for a lot of immigrants.”

Attacks like the one at Risbergska were “the outcome of how our society looks at the moment, how our politicians talk, and how we talk about one another”, he said.

“The government and the main opposition support anti-immigrant policies and use anti-immigrant rhetoric,” he added. “This is what happens when politicians speak the way they are speaking.”

At the cordoned off entrance to Risbergska school early on Thursday morning, people were stopping by to leave flowers, light candles, or simply to stand and take in the scene. From the street, you can clearly see the front door through which the killer was filmed appearing to go from classroom to classroom with a rifle.

Among those who came alone and stood for a while by the collection of candles and flowers was the city’s mayor, John Johansson, who had made an official visit to the site the day before alongside the prime minister and the king and queen but stopped there again on his way to work on Thursday to pay his respects.

“I hope that the police will find conclusions soon,” Johansson said. “The city needs answers, our society needs answers, and the families of the victims need to know why this happened.”

But it was not time to “speculate or rush ahead”, he said. “We do not want to contribute to any false rumours, and so we hope the police will find answers as early as possible.”

Tony Estroem, a salesman from Eskilstuna, about 80km from Orebro, also stopped by the school on Thursday morning. “This kind of shooting, at a school, you read about it elsewhere but not in Sweden,” he said.

“It looks to be a Swedish guy, and perhaps that is better than if it had been an immigrant responsible,” he added. “Of course it is a terrible event either way, but we do not want to add more fuel to the fire.”

Police have given out some limited information about their investigation. They said that about 130 officers responded to the shooting in total, and that they were met by an “inferno” in the school. They said that they believe the gunman acted alone.

Family members, former school friends and neighbours have told Swedish media he had become a recluse in recent years and may have suffered with psychological issues.

There have been complaints about the handling of the case. The Bosnian ambassador Bojan Sosic, who also visited the site of the shooting, learned from residents that a Bosnian was among the dead.

“I find it odd, to say the least, that the police chooses to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens from respective embassies,” he said.

Others, including members of the Syrian community, said they trusted the police were doing the right thing and only hoped to learn more soon. Kasselia, the Syrian Orthodox priest, said that the wider community “does not know what the police are thinking, but we trust that they have their own plan”.

Hundreds of people came to Kasselia’s church on Thursday night from the Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and other migrant communities. A picture of Salim Iskef, one of the shooting’s victims, sat on an easel. Children from the congregation sung hymns. Iskef’s family, sitting in a pew near the front, were consumed by grief.

It is difficult to understand why these sorts of attacks happen even when the motive is known. Without it, it is even more confounding. A few hours before the memorial service began, Kasselia had been sitting in a pew in his empty church, trying to make sense of it.

“People die, of course. They become sick, they have some accident,” he said. “But this, how can we understand this? To be shot dead in a school. We could not dream of this. We cannot even describe it. Why?”

There was some comfort in hearing from the police that the gunman acted alone, Kasselia said. It left less anxiety of another attack.

“But this man had something in his heart, some kind of hate, that he gathered from somewhere,” the priest said. “We cannot say there are not others.”

But on Wednesday he was clutching a bunch of red flowers to lay in tribute to those murdered in Sweden’s worst ever mass shooting.

“I was shocked and didn’t know if I wanted to come to school today after what happened so nearby” he explains to us.

Ismail’s own elementary school is next to the adult learning centre that was targeted yesterday.

Although police still have not given a motive for the attack, Ismail – who is Kurdish – says he fears there was a clear racial element to the shooting.

“In this school, it’s only newcomers to Sweden. There’s not so many Swedish people. So, I think it was targeted for one special group of people.”

All day, there’s been a steady procession of locals lighting candles and gazing across to the school site which remains sealed off.

Vacant faces in the icy wind reflect the sense of shock that has gripped many Swedes in the past 24 hours.

A hush descended on the scene when Sweden’s King arrived to leave his own flowers. The solemnity echoing the national mood as flags fly at half-mast.

The collective grief is complicated by the lack of any explanation for the assault. The police, now in the midst of huge investigation haven’t given away anything to that end.

Trying to build a profile of a “clean skin” – someone not previously known to the police or security service – makes any probe all the more difficult.

But the scale of the loss of life means the public and politicians want answers from the police now.

More than 100 specialist officers are involved, on a local, regional and national level.

Unconfirmed reports in the Swedish media say the gunman was a 35-year-old local man who legally owned a gun.

Reham Attala, 21, is a law student also thinks it was no coincidence this college – popular with immigrants – was chosen, rather than others which were reported to be near the suspect’s home.

“I’m so sad and scared” she tells us at the site of the shooting. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

Reham explains that her dad is Syrian and her mum is Palestinian but for her Sweden is home. She’s has lived in Orebro for the past 11 years.

She is alarmed that the gunmen attacked a school where Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) courses are known to be taught.

“Those people lost yesterday were studying Swedish and this make me think about my future and am I even going to live here, should I have children here? All these questions.”

People should be free to learn and live in peace on campus without fear of this happening, she sighs.

Police tracked Martinovic down after an hours-long manhunt. When they ordered him to drop his weapon during a stand-off, he fatally injured himself and died as he was being transported to hospital.The government has declared three days of national mourning from Thursday, with Prime Minister Milojko Spajic saying the shooting had “shrouded our country in black”.Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic called the incident a “consequence of disturbed interpersonal relations”, according to AFP news agency.Four people were taken to hospital after being seriously wounded in the shooting. Three of them were in a stable but life-threatening condition, authorities said, while one was in critical condition.

Writing on social media, the prime minister said: “This senseless act has caused immeasurable sadness and bitterness in each of us. There are no words of comfort.”Milojko Spajic said the country’s security council would hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to “urgently consider all options” to protect the public, including a complete ban on the possession of weapons.Mass shootings are comparatively rare in the small Balkan nation.In 2022, a man killed several people, including children, in Cetinje following a family dispute.

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes identified the attacker on Monday night as a 15-year-old female student at the school.

Authorities say the attacker was in attendance at Abundant Life Christian School before opening fire and was found dead at the scene. Six students were injured, including two who suffered life-threatening injuries.

A second grade student was the first to call in the active shooter report, according to Chief Barnes.

“Today is a sad day not only for Madison, for our entire country,” Chief Barnes said. “We have to do a better job in our community.

“He added the police had not identified a motive in the shooting, and the suspect’s family was co-operating with the investigation.

He said it is not yet clear how the attacker got hold of a firearm.

He named the alleged attacker as Natalie Rupnow, who also went by the name Samantha. She is believed to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The official cause of death will be released by the Dane County Medical Examiner pending autopsy results.

Chief Barnes said that, to his current knowledge, police had not had any prior interactions with the alleged shooter.

Officers responded to a 911 call of a shooter at the Christian school around 11:00 local time (17:00GMT) on Monday. The attacker attended school before the shooting, Chief Barnes said.

The shooting was confined to a study hall with students in mixed grades.

Barbara Wiers, director of relations at the school, said the school had conducted active shooter training earlier this year and the information was “very fresh” for educators to put into practice on Monday.

She said while the school does not have a dedicated police officer, known as a school resource officer, the doors of all classrooms automatically lock and anyone wanting to gain entry to the campus must be buzzed in through the primary entrance.

Ms Wiers, who said she was teaching at the time of the attack, said students handled themselves “brilliantly”.

“They were clearly scared,” she said. “When they heard ‘lockdown, lockdown’ and nothing else, they knew it was real.”

Police say they found the shooter dead when they arrived at the school, along with a handgun. No officers fired weapons.Police have not named any of the victims.Chief Barnes said two students were in critical but stable condition in the hospital facing life-threatening injuries. Four others were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries, two of whom have since been released.

Authorities have appealed for witnesses who saw or heard the attack to come speak to police, and that they hope these accounts will shed light on the attacker’s motive

.”But that’s not something we want to rush. We’re not gonna interrogate students,” Chief Barnes said. “We’re gonna give them an opportunity to come in and tell us what they saw when they’re ready.”

He added that “ever child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever”.

The chief said officers responded to the school as they were undergoing training at a training centre for law enforcement located three miles away.

“What began as a training day became an actual day,” he said.

The shooting also resulted in a large response from emergency officials. Madison Fire Chief Chris Carbon said 15 ambulances respond.

Officials from the FBI also responded, as well as other federal and local law enforcement officials.

The Abundant Life Christian School has around 400 students ranging from kindergarten through high school.

“Please pray for our Challenger Family,” the school wrote in a post on Facebook. The post quickly received hundreds of comments of support from people across the US.

The school remains closed while police continue their investigation.

“This has been a rough day for our city,” said Chief Barnes.

“This is going to be a day that will be etched in the collective minds and memories of all those from Madison.”

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said that he was closely monitoring the situation and praying for everyone involved. He also ordered that flags fly at half mast on state buildings.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the shooting was “shocking and unconscionable”.

“Students across our country should be learning how to read and write – not having to learn how to duck and cover,” said Biden, who also called on Congress to act immediately on legislation that could prevent more gun violence.

Shootings are common in the US, and schools are no exception.

The K-12 Violence Project, a non-profit working on reducing violence through accessible and actionable research, has counted more than 300 shootings in 2024. These include events where a gun is brandished or fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims.

According to the news organisation EducationWeek, 38 school shootings have resulted in deaths or injuries across the US this year. There were a total of 69 victims – including 16 deaths – before today’s shooting.

Mass shootings by females are far less common, however. School shootings committed by female attackers are even less common.

In a blog post last year, K-12 School Shooting Database founder David Riedman wrote that the vast majority of school shooters are males in their teens or early 20’s. However, at least four planned school shootings were by female attackers dating back to 1979.