At least 10 of those who were wounded in a deadly shooting at a vocational school in Crimea will be airlifted to hospitals in Russia, officials said.
An 18-year-old student went on a shooting rampage at the school on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, killing 19 people and wounding more than 50 others before killing himself.
Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova told Russian news agencies that authorities are preparing to airlift at least 10 people with severe injuries to top Russian hospitals for surgery.
The Kerch Polytechnic College had only a front desk with no security guards, reports said.
Most of the people killed died from gunshot wounds, and those who ended up in hospital were injured from a blast from an improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel.
“Those who have their organs ripped apart, we are finding metal balls in kidneys, intestines, in blood vessels. That is how powerful the blast was.”
Kremlin-appointed Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Russian news agencies that the first victim will be buried later on Thursday.
The school attack in Kerch was the greatest loss of life in school violence in Russia since the Beslan attack by Chechen separatists in 2004, in which 333 people were killed during a three-day siege, many of them children, and hundreds more wounded.
