PRAGUE, Czech Republic – Flags on public buildings flew at half-mast on Saturday and masses were scheduled across the Czech Republic for a day of national mourning after a deadly shooting at Prague’s Charles University – the worst shooting in the country in decades.

A 24-year-old student opened fire at the Faculty of Arts on Thursday, killing 13 people and then himself. Another person later died in hospital.

The shooting sparked frantic scenes as students fled the attack.

The government called on Czechs to observe a minute’s silence at 11 a.m. GMT on Saturday and bells to ring in churches across the EU and NATO member country.

“It is difficult to find the words to express, on the one hand, the condemnation and, on the other hand, the pain and sadness that our entire society is feeling in these days before Christmas,” said Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

Tearful students lit thousands of candles at makeshift memorials at the Faculty of Arts and nearby university headquarters.

The school, families and friends have also begun releasing the names of the victims, students and teachers alike.

“This is extremely cruel news for all of us,” the Institute of Musicology said on Facebook after learning that its 49-year-old director, Lenka Hlavkova, a mother of two, was among the victims.

Other victims included Finnish literary expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova.

The gunman also wounded 25 people, including three who were hit by bullets on the street, when he fired from a balcony.

Among the injured were a Dutch citizen and two citizens of the United Arab Emirates.

Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said there was no connection between the shooting and “international terrorism” and that the perpetrator acted independently.

“Huge arsenal”

However, police have since arrested four people for threatening to imitate the attack or for condoning it.

Police will be deployed at selected locations, including schools, at least until January 1, Interior Minister Rakusan said.

Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said the shooter, who was known to police, had a “huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition.”

He added that investigating the crime scene was “the most harrowing experience” in his 31 years of police service.

Police began searching for the student when they found his murdered father on Thursday.

The student also told his friend that he planned to kill himself in Prague.

Police searched a Faculty of Arts building where he was supposed to attend a lecture, but instead went to the main faculty building nearby.

Police learned of the shooting at around 2:00pm GMT and sent a rapid response unit to the scene. Twenty minutes later the shooter was dead.

Vondrasek, citing his social media account, said the shooter was inspired by a similar shooting in Russia.

“It could have been me”

After a search of the shooter’s home, police linked him to the still-unsolved murder of a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a Prague forest on December 15.

“A ballistics analysis determined that the weapon used in the … woods was identical to a weapon found in the university shooter’s home,” police said on X.

This week’s shooting in Prague’s historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was the deadliest since the Czech Republic was founded as an independent state in 1993.

Condolences poured in from around the world: Pope Francis, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain’s King Charles and many others expressed their condolences.

Technical University student Antonin Volavka lit a candle at the makeshift memorial to remember the dead.

“This could have happened to anyone. Really, it could have been me,” he told AFP.

The Czech Republic is the 12th safest country in the world, according to the Global Peace Index 2023, and mass violence with weapons is rare.

But in 2015, a man shot seven men and a woman before killing himself at a restaurant in the southeast, while another gunman killed seven people at a hospital in the east and then himself in 2019.