A masked man armed with a sword has killed a pupil and a teacher at a school in Sweden.

Two further victims were seriously injured at the school in the western town of Trollhattan.

The attacker was shot by police and has died of his injuries. He was 21 and resident in Trollhattan, police said.

Eyewitnesses described chaos at the school, with hundreds of students fleeing from the building screaming.

Police responded to an emergency call reporting an attack in the cafe area of the Kronan School, at around 10:10 local time (08:10 gmt) on Thursday.

One teacher died of his wounds at the scene.

Two male students, aged 11 and 15, and another teacher were rushed to hospital. One of the boys has since died of his injuries.

The attacker was also taken to hospital with gunshot wounds and has since died.

Police have searched the suspect’s home.

A student at the school has provided a photo, apparently showing the attacker posing in the school corridor, ahead of the attacks.

It shows a man wearing black, with a helmet, a mask and a sword, possibly resembling a Nazi World War 2 uniform.

A girl in the eighth grade told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that she was in a maths lesson when they saw the masked man in the corridor.

“We thought it was a Halloween joke,” she said. “He was completely dressed in black and had a mask.”

The girl said her teacher went out into the corridor and tried to remove the mask, and it was then the man attacked and stabbed with the sword, she said.

Police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg said police fired two shots, one of which hit the attacker. No motive was given for the attack.

One student told the local newspaper: “I was in a classroom with my class when one of my classmates’ sisters called her to warn her that there was a murderer at the school. So we locked the door to the classroom, but our teacher was still outside in the corridor.

“We wanted to warn him, so a few of us went outside and then I saw the murderer, he was wearing a mask and had a sword. Our teacher got stabbed.

“The murderer started chasing me, I ran into another classroom. If I had not run, I would have been murdered. I’m feeling really scared. Everyone’s scared here.”

Sweden’s Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, will travel to Trollhattan this afternoon. He said it was a “black day for Sweden”.

“I think of the victims and their families, students and staff, and the whole of the affected community. No words can describe what they are going through right now. We must ensure that they receive all the support they need,” he said.

Sweden’s Interior Minister, Anders Ygeman, said on twitter: “it is with sadness and dismay I received the news of the attack on the school in Trollhattan. My thoughts go to the victims and their families.”

Trollhattan is an industrial town in west Sweden, located around 75km (50 miles) north of Gothenburg, the nation’s second largest city.

School attacks are rare in Sweden – this is the first since a shooting at a school in Kungalv near Gothenburg in 1961 which killed one person and injured six others.

(BBC News)