At least 15 dead after mass shooting by student at Prague University

WATCH: Pablo Gutierrez reports on the shooting in Prague

More than 15 people were killed in a shooting at a Prague university, with many more wounded.

Czech police responded to the shooting at Charles University's Faculty of Arts building in Jan Palach Square shortly after 1400 GMT on Thursday. Police said the father of the shooter - a student at the faculty - was found dead earlier on Thursday.

It was Czechia's worst shooting in decades with authorities saying the attacker was "eliminated."

"We always thought that this was a thing that did not concern us. Now it turns out that, unfortunately, our world is also changing and the problem of the individual shooter is emerging here as well," Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda told Czech Television.

The violence in the city's historic center sparked frantic evacuations, a massive response by heavily armed police and warnings for people to stay indoors.

The shooting erupted at the university, which sits near major tourist sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge. Emergency services preliminarily reported nine serious injuries, at least five mid-serious and up to 10 light injuries.

Thursday's shooting was the worst since Czechia emerged as an independent state in 1993.

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Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said: "There is no indication that this crime has any link to international terrorism."

Czech President Petr Pavel said he was "shocked" by the violence and expressed "deep regret and sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the victims."

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen added: "I am shocked by the senseless violence of the shooting that claimed several lives today."

The private Nova TV reported a blast and a gunman on the roof of the building in Prague's historic center. Police closed the area and asked people living nearby to stay at home.

Though mass gun violence is unusual in the Czech Republic, the nation has been rocked by some instances in recent years.

A 63-year-old man shot seven men and a woman dead in 2015 before killing himself in a restaurant in the southeastern town of Uhersky Brod. 

A man killed six people in the waiting room of a hospital in the eastern city of Ostrava in 2019, with another woman dying days later. The man shot himself dead about three hours after the attack.

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