Boy, 13, shoots 2 dead at Brazil school

Students tried to escape over a wall, but it was too tall and many were trapped on the school roof

A teenage boy shot dead two staff members and injured two other people, including a student, at a school in northeast Brazil on Tuesday, prompting panicked students to try to escape over a wall, authorities and a witness said.

A 13-year-old boy was arrested over the attack at Sao Jose Institute in Rio Branco, the capital of Acre state, the local government said in a statement.

Eduardo Rodrigues Cavalcante, who works as a receptionist at a hotel next to the school, said that when the shooting began, some students tried to jump over a wall separating the school from the hotel.

“The wall is six meters high, and only one person managed to jump over and take refuge here in the hotel. The other people were left on the school roof trying to escape,” the 19-year-old receptionist said, adding that he heard “gunshots and a lot of screaming”.

Images released by a local media outlet showed a woman being evacuated on a stretcher and people crying and hugging each other outside the school.

It was not yet clear whether the attacker was a current or former pupil at the school.