Open in full screen mode A mass was celebrated in the Cathedral of Saint- Guy, in Prague. Agence France-Presse Minute of silence, flags at half-mast and masses throughout the country: The Czech Republic paid tribute on Saturday to the victims of the massacre that left 14 dead two days ago at Charles University in Prague, the worst attack of its type in the country. A minute of silence was observed on Saturday at noon local time, and bells rang in churches across this member country of the & #x27;European Union and NATO two days after a 24-year-old student opened fire at this university and killed himself. We are all trying to build paradise on Earth, but the reality of life shows us that evil exists, said Prague Archbishop Jan Graubner, who celebrated a mass for the victims in St. Guy from Prague Castle. According to students who attended the mass, President Petr Pavel was present. 
President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel attends the memorial mass for the victims of the mass shooting in a university in Prague on Thursday.
Fourteen people died: thirteen at the time of the shooting, which also left 25 injured, and another who succumbed to her injuries on Friday.
Loading in progress
No respite in Gaza for New Year
ELSELSE ON INFO: No respite in Gaza for New Year
It is difficult to find the words to express, on the one hand, the condemnation and, on the other hand, the pain and sorrow that our entire population feels in these days leading up to Christmas.< /p>A quote from Petr Fiala, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic
Thousands of candles were lit in an improvised memorial in front of the Faculty of Arts and the headquarters of Charles University, in the historic center of Prague.
The identities of the victims, students and teachers, began to be published.
Among the Victims include Finnish literature expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova.
A Dutch national and two United Arab Emirates nationals are among the injured.
Students brought flowers for each deceased victim.
Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said no link could be established between the attack and international terrorism and that the attacker had acted on his own accord.
Since Thursday, police have arrested four people who threatened to repeat the& #x27;attack or who have approved it. Police surveillance will be organized around certain sites and school buildings at least until January 1, indicated the Minister of the Interior.
The police chief, Martin Vondrasek, stressed that the assailant, unknown to the justice system, had a huge stock of # x27;weapons and ammunition.
Vondrasek said police began searching for the student even before the shooting because his father's body was found in the western village of Hostoun. of Prague.
The student had also told a friend that he was considering commit suicide in Prague.
The facade of the house in Hostoun where police believe gunman killed father before mass shooting at Prague university.
Police then searched a building at the Faculty of Arts where the murderer was supposed to report for a class, but he eventually went nearby to the main university building.
At around 3 p.m. local time, police were alerted about shooting and dispatched a unit&# x27;intervention on site. Twenty minutes later, the attacker was dead.
According to the shooter's account on social networks, the latter indicated that he was inspired by a similar attack in Russia , explained Mr. Vondrasek.
After a search of the shooter's home, the police established a link with the unsolved murder of a young man and his two-month-old daughter in a forest near Prague on December 15.
A ballistic analysis proved that the weapon used in the forest was identical to the one found at the home of the university shooter, police said on the X network.< /p>
Messages of condolences and sympathy have poured in from around the world from Pope Francis and the presidents of the United States, France and Ukraine, just like King Charles of Great Britain.
This could have happened to anyone. Actually, it could have been me, student Antonin Volavka said Friday as he lit a candle at the makeshift memorial.
The Czech Republic is the 12th safest country in the world, according to the 2023 Global Peace Index, and gun violence is rare. However, in 2015, a man shot seven men and a woman before committing suicide at a southeastern restaurant, while another gunman killed seven people at an eastern hospital. , then himself, in 2019.