Zagreb (AFP) - A seven-year-old pupil was killed and several others wounded in an unprecedented stabbing attack at a school in the Croatian capital Zagreb Friday, with a 19-year-old man arrested as a suspect, authorities said.

Police sealed off Precko primary school after the attack, thought to be the first of its kind in Croatia. Parents and pupils expressed their shock and anger.

“A total of six people were injured of whom unfortunately one child has died on the spot after intensive efforts to revive them,” Health Minister Irena Hrstic told reporters.

“The deceased child is seven years old,” she added.

Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said the suspect was a 19-year-old former student of the school.

Following the attack, the suspect fled and hid at a nearby healthcare centre, where he tried to commit suicide with a knife and was apprehended by police, the minister added.

The suspect had a record of mental disorders and a year ago had attempted suicide, Bozinovic added.

The minister said a preliminary investigation had indicated that the attack happened in a school hallway, not a classroom.

- ‘Speechless from shock’ -

Parents quoted by state-run broadcaster HRT said pupils had just finished their school breakfast when they saw a young man beating a boy and then panic broke out.

“I heard from my sister that there was no one at the entrance and that the attacker entered, breaking into a first-grade classroom and then into a fifth-grade class,” Filip, 14, told AFP outside the school. He said his sister was a first-grade pupil.

Filip – who attends the school in the afternoon – said other first-graders leaving the scene had been “speechless from shock”.

Others called for more security after the attack.

“We must have fences. Today there is everything, radars, detectors, cameras, analytics, AI… But what do we have? A man enters an open, unprotected school!” parent Marko Sikirica told reporters, looking visibly shaken.

All of the wounded were being treated at hospitals and were in stable condition, said the health minister.

The alleged attacker was also injured during the incident, she added.

“We are shocked, as is the entire Croatian public, at the horrible tragedy at the primary school,” Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

- ‘Appalled and heartbroken’ -

Zagreb mayor Tomislav Tomasevic and Education Minister Radovan Fuchs also rushed to the school following the attack.

“We are appalled and heartbroken,” Tomasevic told journalists.

The suspected attacker’s mother told local media that he had been treated at a psychiatric hospital on several occasions.

“I begged the doctor not to release him because he was not fit for that,” she said.

At midday, about a dozen police cars with their lights on were parked in front the school, an AFP reporter noted.

The area was sealed off and forensic experts dressed in white overalls were collecting evidence from the school yard.

The city authorities later published contact details for free psychological support.

“Children should be provided with psychological support…,” Marko Palada, a Precko community official, told AFP.

“I met a neighbour whose child is in the fifth grade. The child … was in shock and couldn’t say two coherent words.”

Fatal attacks on the public are rare in Croatia.

In July, a gunman killed six people at a nursing home in eastern Croatia’s Daruvar.

Last year, neighbouring Serbia was rocked by back-to-back mass shootings, including a massacre at a school in the capital in Belgrade in which 10 people were killed.

Croatian authorities said they planned to hold a national day of mourning on Saturday.