A school lunch lady has said she helped hide 50 students in the kitchen during yesterday’s mass shooting at a school in Brazil.
Five teenagers, two school employees and the owner of a nearby shop were killed when two gunmen opened fire at the Professor Raul Brasil School in Suzano, near São Paulo just after noon Irish time yesterday.
At least nine others were injured in the attack.
The gunmen – aged 17 and 25-year’s old – both killed themselves after the attack. The Associated Press reports that the men were former students of the school.
The area’s governor João Doria has decreed three days of mourning in remembrance of the teenagers who were “brutally assassinated” in the attack.
Profundamente chocado com essa inexplicável tragédia. É muito triste! Minha total solidariedade e todo apoio às vítimas e aos familiares. Decretei luto oficial de três dias no Estado de São Paulo.
— João Doria (@jdoriajr) March 13, 2019
In the hours after the shooting, 54-year-old lunch lady Silmara Cristina Silva de Moraes said she helped hide around 50 children in the school kitchen.
She said employees locked the room and barricaded the door using a fridge and freezer when they heard the shots begin to ring out.
“We opened the kitchen and began to put as many children as we could inside. We closed everything and asked them to lie on the floor," she told Brazilian news station Globo 1.
“It was terrifying because there was a lot of shooting. A lot of shooting and a lot of panic.”
She said it was impossible to see what was happening outside and the killers seemed to be everywhere.
“It seemed like they were looking for someone,” she said. “They were shooting a lot.”
“We didn’t see anything; we got down and listened to the movement. It lasted 10 to 15 minutes or so.”
A merendeira Silmara Cristina Silva de Moraes, de 54 anos, ajudou a esconder 50 estudantes na cozinha durante o ataque que matou alunos e duas funcionárias da Escola Estadual Raul Brasil em Suzano. #suzanoemluto pic.twitter.com/nxImsejeOZ
— Marcos Izidoro (@MarcosIzidoro_) March 14, 2019
She said the kitchen staff turned over tables to “make a shield to protect the children.”
“We were stuck in a corner,” she said. “If something happened they would have gotten a lot of people.”
There are around 1,000 primary and secondary school students – aged from six and eight-years-old – enrolled at the Professor Raul Brasil School.
A memorial to the victims of a school shooting near Sao Paolo, brazil, 13-03-2019. Image: FÃBio Vieira/Fotorua/Zuma Press/PA ImagesWhile gun crime is common in Brazil, mass shootings of this nature have traditionally been rare.
The country’s new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree making it easier for law-abiding citizens to own a firearm.
