Church bells rang, flags flew at half-mast and masses were held across the Czech Republic on Saturday, a day of national mourning for the victims of a deadly shooting at Prague’s Charles University.A heavily armed 24-year-old student killed 14 people and then himself at the Faculty of Arts on Thursday.The lone gunman also wounded 24 others, including three foreigners.The gunfire sparked frantic scenes of students running from the attacker, with some escaping onto the roof and then jumping onto a balcony below, while others clung to top-floor windows from ledges.Daily life halted for a minute of silence for the victims in the EU and Nato member country at noon on Saturday.“We are all trying to build heaven on earth, but the reality of life shows us that evil exists,” said Prague Archbishop Jan Graubner, celebrating a mass for the victims at the Gothic St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle.Students attending the mass said top politicians were present, including President Petr Pavel, and that many in the cathedral were in tears. “The life of each person in its uniqueness enriches and becomes a part of the lives of others, and its loss is therefore irreplaceable,” Charles University rector Milena Kralickova said at the mass, her voice breaking.A choir singing at the mass was led by David Eben, a musician and musicology teacher at the Faculty of Arts.His department lost its director, Lenka Hlavkova, a mother of two, in the carnage.Since the shooting, people have lit thousands of candles for the victims at makeshift memorials set up in Prague and other cities.During the mass on Saturday, Faculty of Arts students brought eighteen roses to the altar — 14 for the university victims, one for the gunman and three for other people he had killed.Police said that the gunman appeared to have killed a randomly chosen young man and his two-month-old daughter in a Prague forest on December 15.“A ballistic analysis proved the gun used in the…forest was IDENTICAL with a gun found at the university gunman’s home,” police said on X.
