A farewell letter and video have been discovered at the home of a 21-year-old gunman who killed 10 people in a school shooting in Austria, as the nation observed a minute’s silence on Wednesday.
The country paused at 10am local time (9am UK time), marking the moment of the attack a day earlier at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school in the southeastern city of Graz.
A teacher and nine students were killed – six girls and three boys aged between 14 and 17. Another 11 people were wounded.
Hundreds of people gathered for the silence in the central square of Austria‘s second-biggest city, some also lighting candles in memory of those killed, others hugged each other, as they tried to come to terms with the tragedy.
In the capital Vienna, trams, subway trains and buses also stopped for a minute.
Hundreds of people joined Austrian officials at a service on Tuesday evening in Graz cathedral.
Police said the gunman, who took his own life, was a former student at the school who had not completed his studies.
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But they added they do not yet know what his motive was.
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The unnamed man used two weapons in the attack, a shotgun and a pistol, which he owned legally.
On Wednesday, officers searched the home where he lived with his mother near Graz and found a pipe bomb, which was not operational, along with abandoned plans for a bombing.
Franz Ruf, public security director at Austria’s interior ministry, told TV network ORF about the messages which officers discovered.
“A farewell letter in analog and digital form was found. He says goodbye to his parents. But no motive can be inferred from the farewell letter, and that is a matter for further investigations,” Mr Ruf said.
He added that the wounded people were found on various levels of the school and in the front of the building, but would not speculate on whether they were specifically targeted by the gunman.
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Among those in the square on Wednesday was Chiara Komlenic, 28, who said she always felt safe when she attended the school.
“I made lifelong friendships there. It just hurts to see that young girls and boys will never come back, that they experienced the worst day of their lives where I had the best time of my life… it just hurts a lot,” she said.
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On Wednesday morning, local health officials said that those injured were aged between 15 and 26 and were in a stable condition.
Nine were still in intensive care units, two of whom needed further operations. Another two had been moved to regular wards.
Austria has declared three days of national mourning following what appears to be the deadliest attack in its post-Second World War history.
