Two shooters have opened fire inside a school near Sao Paulo killing eight people including four children before turning their weapons on themselves.
Military police Colonel Marcelo Sales said the two assailants burst into the school grounds in the early morning, armed with a .38 caliber revolver, and a bow and arrow.
After shooting at students in the yard, the assailants headed to the language center where several pupils were hiding.
"Eight people died at the scene, including the two assailants," a state military police spokesman said.
The students who died were mostly 15 and 16 years old.
Authorities identified the shooters as Luiz Henrique de Castro, 25, and Guilherme Taucci Monteiro, 17. The two men were former students of the school.
Scenes outside Raul Brasil State School. Source: AAP
Around 10 others were injured in the shooting, which took place at the Raul Brasil public school in Suzano, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in southeast Brazil.
Police arrived eight minutes after the shooting started, by which time the gunmen had already killed themselves.
Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world with 64,000 murders in 2017, a rate of almost 31 per 100,000 inhabitants - that's three times higher than the level the United Nations classifies as endemic violence.
However, school shootings are rare.
Far right President Jair Bolsonaro controversially passed a law relaxing the rules on carrying weapons soon after assuming power in January, delivering on a campaign promise.
In response to the shooting, the President gave his condolences to the relatives of victims.
"A monstrosity and cowardice without size," he tweeted.
"God bless the hearts of all!"
Sao Paulo State Governor Joao Doria said four children and two members of staff were among the dead.
"It's the saddest thing I've ever seen," Mr Doria added.
Before entering the Raul Brasil school in Suzano, a city on the eastern outskirts of metropolitan Sao Paulo, the assailants, shot and hospitalised the owner of a car rental agency from which they had stolen a vehicle.
A former student is comforted by a friend. Source: AAP
Worried family members congregated outside alongside firefighters and security services, a photographer at the scene said.
"I found out when my daughter called me and said: Mummy, come quickly, there are injured people, dead people," said the mother of one pupil, who gave her name only as Rosa.
Crime scene photographs released by police show Monteiro, his head lying in a pool of blood, dressed in black with a machete tucked in his pants. Castro’s body lay near Monteiro’s, with the crossbow on the ground between the pair.
'Covered by a hood'
The attack took place during a recess period for some students, authorities said.
It is not yet clear why the gunmen attacked the school, which is in a middle-class neighborhood and has about 1,000 children aged 11 to 16 attending classes.
When the shooting erupted at around 9.30 a.m. local time, those living next to the school went to their front yards and were met with scenes of horror.
Marilene Gonçalves, a 51-year-old housewife, said she saw children fleeing the school, and that she gave safe harbor to several, including one boy who was shot in the jaw.
“I heard a lot of screaming,” she said. “I opened the gate to my house and I saw children jumping over the school’s wall.”
Raul Brasil State School. Source: AAP
Education Minister Ricardo Velez published a statement offering "solidarity with the parents, families and staff at the school in this moment of shock, mourning and pain."
It's not the first mass school shooting in Brazil's history.
In April 2011, a former pupil killed a dozen school children and injured many more before turning his gun on himself at a school in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro.
A teenager who was injured during the shooting is carried into hospital. Source: AAP
Marcelo Salles, commander of police forces in Sao Paulo state, spoke just outside the school and said that in his over three decades of service, he had “never seen anything like this, it was an unspeakably brutal crime.”
Security cameras from homes near the school showed children climbing and jumping over a wall that surrounds the Raul Brasil building, and sprinting down streets, screaming for help.
Wednesday’s shooting ignited debate among political leaders, with some saying armed teachers could have prevented the killings, while others said putting more guns on Brazilian streets will only lead to more deaths.
