A shooting left two students injured at a private school connected to Ateneo de Zamboanga University in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga on Tuesday.
According to police and local officials, the incident took place at the junior high school campus in Zamboanga City just before classes began. After the situation was brought under control, hundreds of students were evacuated.
The initial account was that a ninth-grade student carrying firearms had opened fire inside a classroom. But according to police, the suspect eventually died by suicide. In addition to one other student being killed, another two were reportedly injured, according to officials.
“The suspect, however, reportedly seemed to fire first at a teacher before he shot the Grade 10 student,” Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla was quoted as saying by AFP. “He [the suspect] entered and started indiscriminately firing, hitting a Grade 10 student on the fourth floor. Then he proceeded to the fifth floor of the building where he jumped off and committed suicide.”
Officials are examining various aspects about the shooting incident such as how the suspect managed to acquire the firearms and the potential trigger for the shooting.
This incident marks the second fatal school shooting in the Philippines in just two months time, after one happened in the city of Tacloban last June.
