MOSCOW — A young man opened fire in a bustling building in a prestigious Azerbaijan university Thursday, killing 12 people before turning the gun on himself.
The gunman was identified as Farda Gadyrov, a citizen of neighboring Georgia. He entered a building at Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in Baju about 9:30 a.m. and began climbing the stairs, shooting indiscriminately as he ascended, Azerbaijani officials said.
More than a dozen people were wounded in the attack before the gunman shot himself dead as police closed in.
“We were in an exam, we heard gunshots, we went out of the classroom in panic and saw a gunman opening fire on everyone,” Turkish student Bekir Belek told Turkey’s CNN-Turk television from a hospital in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital. “Everywhere was covered in blood, all corridors. There are many wounded.”
“There were bodies at each floor,” said Ibrahim Kar, another Turkish student at the hospital.
Gadyrov came armed with a Makarov pistol and several fully loaded clips, officials in the former Soviet nation said.
“He was just shooting right and left around himself at people fleeing in all directions,” said Eskhan Zakhidov, a spokesman at the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry. “The attacker is a young man, but it’s not clear whether he was a student himself. His motives aren’t clear, either.”
The century-old oil academy once trained oil engineers who worked all over the former Soviet Union and is still considered a prestigious center of study.
“I feel deep regret and consider this a terrible incident for our society,” Education Minister Misir Mardanov told reporters.
