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Police officers and rescue workers are on duty in the schoolyard in front of the Wilhelm-Dörpfeld-Gymnasium.
© Christoph Reichwein/dpa
Several students are injured in an attack in Wuppertal.
The suspect is said to have also attended high school.
Dramatic scenes must have taken place at school.
Wuppertal - A 17-year-old student is said to have injured several classmates with stabbing weapons at a high school in Wuppertal.
The suspect himself and two classmates were seriously injured in intensive care units, as a spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor's office said.
The 17-year-old was arrested and is said to have carried out the attack on Thursday with several stabbing weapons.
According to a police spokesman, investigators are assuming an amok attack.
The crime happened in the middle of ongoing school operations.
The Wuppertal public prosecutor's office said the alarm was triggered at 9:55 a.m.
At least two students were seriously injured in the knife attack.
The Düsseldorf police spoke of a total of four injured, without going into further detail about the severity of the injuries.
The attack occurred in the middle of Wuppertal at the Wilhelm-Dörpfeld-Gymnasium in the Elberfeld district, an ancient language-oriented school near the town hall.
Many police and fire departments were on site.
The building was evacuated and searched.
Shortly after 12 p.m., officials announced that the students were safe.
The evacuation was carried out in an orderly manner.
The operation began shortly before 10 a.m.
The police were informed of an emergency call from the school office, said North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul.
Nothing is yet known about the perpetrator's motive.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the suspect was critically injured.
According to Reul, he was told verbally with reservations that the 17-year-old had inflicted the injuries on himself.
The authorities assumed it was a lone perpetrator.
Many students experienced dramatic moments and were affected by what happened.
They were picked up by their parents and the police had set up a contact point for this.
A student told the German Press Agency that a friend of his saw two older students running down the stairs bleeding.
“I thought: Maybe they got into a fight,” he recalled.
But then an announcement was made asking them to go into the classrooms and lock the rooms.
“We then pushed the tables in front of the door and sat on the floor at the back,” he said.
“We were very scared.”
Other students reported similar things.
“We had English lessons, then an announcement came that several students had been injured and that the paramedics should come to the medical room,” said an eleven-year-old student.
As they waited barricaded in their classroom, someone pushed the handle and scratched on the door.
The area around the school was largely cordoned off.
A police helicopter circled in the air.
Among the many emergency services were officers with submachine guns.
Pastors could be seen.
Even students who were not physically injured were in shock.
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According to the district government, the high school should be open on Friday.
However, there will be no lessons for the students directly affected, said a spokeswoman.
A total of 30 psychologists will come to the school to work through what has happened with the students.
dpa