By Athena Papakosta

Panic scenes inside and outside Charles University in Prague describe those who experienced the moments of terror in the heart of the Czech capital on Thursday afternoon.

Jacob Wiseman, a journalist and graduate student in Balkan Studies at the University, had just sat down to take an exam in the Albanian language course. When the examination was about to begin he heard gunshots and shouts. He and his teacher were the only ones in the room. They immediately locked the door and barricaded it by arranging tables, chairs and anything else they could think of so that no one could open it.

“I think the attacker moved from the inside of the University to the outside, to the balcony from where he opened fire,” explains Weisman, speaking to the British newspaper The Guardian, adding that at that point “there were people who were trying to escape.” .

Weizmann refers to the image above which captures the despair painted on people’s faces. Almost ten people, side by side, took refuge in the… void hoping that no one would find them there. They are hanging from a windowsill in order to be covered from the gunman’s indiscriminate fire. A few minutes later they will jump to the balcony below them.

“The attacker went from room to room looking for people to open fire on. We managed to lock the door to our own classroom five minutes before he tried to open it,” Jacob Wiseman describes, explaining that both he and his professor spent the hour locked and safe together communicating with family and loved ones. the persons calling them to inform the police forces that they were in room 309A.

“I was teaching at the time and at first I didn’t quite understand what had happened because of the sounds. The students listened better because I was very absorbed in what I was saying, in my lecture,” says Sergei Medvedev, a professor at Charles University. “Then we realized what had happened.” A few minutes later, members of the Czech special operations team burst into the room, urging everyone not to leave. An hour later, other members of the same group checked the area, calling the professor and his students to fall on the floor. No one had to leave. The alarm had not yet expired.

Outside the University, just a few meters away, police vehicles and ambulances crossed the historic Charles Bridge. Time seemed to freeze. The area around the University, in Jan Palach Square, which a few hours before was bustling with life, had been deserted by the tourists who had visited it.

“We heard loud shots. It didn’t hit us at first until we heard the screaming, people running, the sirens,” says Joey Hyland from the UK who was unable to run after one of his friends – who were visiting Prague for Christmas – he was on crutches.

“I wasn’t ready to admit that something like this could happen in Prague,” 43-year-old Ivo Havranek told Reuters news agency. “Suddenly students and professors were running outside the University,” he says, noting that he realized what was happening when he saw the automatic rifles of the police officers. “They shouted at me to run.” And he ran.

The accounts of those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time read like a survival guide to what one can and cannot do if they find themselves in that position.

The perpetrator was a student at Charles University. He was only 24 years old. Before opening fire and spreading death in one of Europe’s most historic university institutions, he had also killed his father. The dead inside the University are 14. The wounded 25. The perpetrator himself is also dead. His motives remain, for now, unknown. The Authorities rule out the carnage being related to international terrorism with the Chief of the Czech Police speaking of a pre-planned attack with the 24-year-old drawing… inspiration from abroad.

Yesterday’s attack in Prague is the worst the country has experienced since the breakup of Czechoslovakia 30 years ago. The latest attack took place in December 2019 when a man opened fire in a hospital waiting room, killing six people.