Russia: 19 killed and 50 injured in Crimean college terrorist attack

At least 19 people were killed, most of them students and 50 others injured in an attack at the vocational college in Crimea on Wednesday, Russian officials said.

Sergei Melikov, a deputy chief of the Russian National Guard, said the explosive device was homemade. Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top investigative agency, said the device that went off at the college’s canteen was packed with metal fragments.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has confirmed the blast at the college was a terrorist attack.

According to reports, one attacker set off a bomb in the college cafeteria and went through the building shooting at random.

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Crimea Governor Sergei Aksyonov said the main suspect was a male student of the college and that he had killed himself.

Earlier, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the blast at the college in the city of Kerch in eastern Crimea was caused by an unidentified explosive device.

Investigators have now begun interviewing eye witnesses and scrutinizing CCTV cameras to ascertain the incident, sources said.

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Olga Grebennikova, director of the vocational college in Kerch, told mediapersons that armed with automatic rifles burst into the college and killed everyone they saw, adding students and staff were among victims.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to conduct a thorough probe on explosion and offered condolences to the families of the victims, his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

A three-day period of mourning has been declared in Crimea starting from Wednesday, it said.

(With inputs from agencies)