Ten killed and 50 injured in 'terror attack' at school as 'masked gunmen shoot everyone they can find' and set off bombs loaded with screws and studs in Russian-occupied Crimea

  • Alleged terror attack at school in Kerch, Crimean peninsula, on Wednesday
  • Masked gunmen reportedly set off at least one explosive device in canteen
  • Witnesses say attackers 'killed everyone they could find' at technical college
  • Ten killed and at least 50 injured in incident in Russian-occupied territory

Ten people have been killed and at least 50 injured in an alleged terror attack on a school in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Masked gunmen reportedly entered the high school in Kerch, 'killing everyone they could find, all those they could see' with explosive devices and rifles. 

Witnesses say the unidentified attackers set off at least one explosive device in the school canteen before going on a shooting spree through the corridors.

The Kremlin has said they have launched a terror probe into the attack at the tech collage on the Russian-occupied peninsula.  

Explosion: The alleged terror attach at the school in Kerch, Crimea, killed at least ten people and injured 50 others

Explosion: The alleged terror attach at the school in Kerch, Crimea, killed at least ten people and injured 50 others

The bomb was reportedly rigged with 'small screws and studs' which were later found buried in the flesh of the casualties. 

Olga Grebennikova, director of the college in Kerch, said: 'They broke in with some explosive packages, then rifles. 

'They were killing everyone they could find, those they could see.' 

Student Semyon Gavrilov said: 'I looked outside of the classroom and there was a guy with a gun and shooting everyone.

'So I locked myself [in the classroom] hoping he wouldn't hear me.

'Ten minutes later the police with machine guns arrived. There were bodies of the dead on the floor. The walls were charred.' 

The bomb was reportedly rigged with 'small screws and studs' which were later found buried in the flesh of the casualties

The bomb was reportedly rigged with 'small screws and studs' which were later found buried in the flesh of the casualties

Aid: Two police officers are seen helping an injured teenage girl outside the school

Aid: Two police officers are seen helping an injured teenage girl outside the school

'Terror attack': Witnesses claim masked gunmen entered the high school and shot teachers and students  

'Terror attack': Witnesses claim masked gunmen entered the high school and shot teachers and students  

Another student said: 'A teacher was killed in front of me (by) a man with blond hair.'

A witness told a local TV station that the men entered the school without being asked for identification, before the shooting began. 

'They shot …. and there were many people… teachers, friends, they were [indistinctive] by an explosion and everyone started running.

'Shooting began, police and ambulance arrived. There is a lot of blood.'

Svetlana Petrenko, from Russia's Investigative Committee said: 'An unidentified explosive device stuffed with metal items went off at the canteen of the polytechnic college.' 

'The number of the victims is being clarified, most of them are teenagers,' she said.

'Bomb technicians are working on the site, once they have finished investigators will study the accident site at the epicentre of the explosion.' 

 A witness have told Reuters that schools and kindergartens in Kerch are now being evacuated.

Earlier, emergency officials said the blast was caused by a gas canister explosion in the school canteen, however this has now been denied by authorities.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that officials are looking into a possible terrorist attack. He did not elaborate.

Peskov said Putin has instructed investigators and intelligence agencies to conduct a thorough probe and offered condolences to the families of the victims. 

Emergency: Several ambulances could be seen arriving and leaving with injured victims

Emergency: Several ambulances could be seen arriving and leaving with injured victims

An employee at a hospital in Kerch was quoted as saying that 18 people had already been admitted with injuries from the explosion, and that doctors are expecting around 50 more wounded people to be brought in.

'There are already lots of people in the emergency room, and in the operating theatre,' TASS quoted the employee as saying.

Photographs from the scene of the blast posted by local media outlet Kerch.FM showed ground floor windows of the two-storey building had been blown out, and debris from the building was lying on the floor outside. 

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014, prompting international condemnation and Western sanctions. 

Kerch is the point on the peninsula where a bridge linking Crimea to Russia makes landfall on the Crimean side.

Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the bridge to road traffic in May this year, getting behind the wheel of a truck to drive it across the bridge.

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Ten killed and 50 injured as bomb explodes at a school in Russian-occupied Crimea

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