At least ten people were killed at a Brazilian elementary school when two hooded men entered with weapons on Wednesday, Sao Paulo police said.
Six children were killed as they sat down to their snack break along with two teachers before the shooters killed themselves at the Professor Raul Brasil school in the Suzano suburb of the city.
At least 17, mostly children, were also shot at the elementary school and taken to hospitals, police said in a written statement. The state of their health was not immediately known.
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The police commander described how the young gunmen used a .38 calibre pistol as well as 'medieval' looking weaponry, including a bow and arrow and a hatchet.Police said that two men wearing face masks entered the building and started shooting at about 9.30am local time.
Marcelo Salles, commander of police forces in Sao Paulo state, spoke outside and said in his more than three decades of service, he had 'never seen anything like this, it was an unspeakably brutal crime.'
Sales said the assailants used 'a .38 calibre revolver and a medieval weapon that looked like a bow and arrows.'
In addition they carried blades, including a small axe and knives.
Within the school the police found what appeared to be Molotov cocktails and a wired up suitcase.
The bomb-squad were scrambled to the scene as armed officers descended on the school.
Police arrived eight minutes after the shooting started and did not confront the gunmen, who had already killed themselves, he said. A homemade video taken during the shooting and aired by Globo TV showed children screaming, running and begging for their lives as loud shots were heard all around.
Security cameras from homes nearby showed children climbing and jumping over a white wall that surrounds the Raul Brasil building, and sprinting down streets, screaming for help.
Governor Joao Doria says the two attackers were believed to be between 20 and 25 years old.
Doria said the school had been evacuated and police were inspecting possible explosives left by the shooters.
'The school is on lockdown,' he said. The building was cut off by emergency crews as students and staff poured onto the street outside, many in tears.
According to Globo, a 15-year-old described the violence: 'There were a lot of dead people on the ground. They shouted, but I did not understand what it was.
'My friend took a stab in the shoulder and another was shot. I ran away with another friend to my house and came back to get another.'
The school has some 1,000 students between the ages of 11 and 15. In April 2011, a former pupil killed a dozen school children and injured many more before turning his gun on himself at a school in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world with 64,000 murders in 2017, a rate of almost 31 per 100,000 inhabitants - that's three times higher than the level the United Nations classifies as endemic violence.
Far right President Jair Bolsonaro passed a law allowing people to carry arms soon after assuming power in January, delivering on a campaign promise.
Standing outside the school, Claudio Cabral said he had been trying to reach his nephew, 17-year-old Douglas Mourinho, so far without luck.
'He is a smart kid. We heard many students jumped the wall,' Cabral said hopefully. 'Maybe that's what happened.'
