Two assailants burst into the school grounds in the early morning, armed with a .38 caliber revolver and a “medieval weapon that looked like a bow and arrows,” military police Colonel Marcelo Sales said.

After shooting at students in the yard, the killers headed to the language center where several pupils were hiding and “committed suicide in a corridor,” he said.

Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world, and the victims in this case were five students aged 15 to 17, two school officials aged 38 and 59, and a 51-year-old carwash owner who was shot by the attackers before they arrived at the school, said Sao Paulo’s Public Security Secretary Joao Pires de Campos.

Eleven other people were wounded in the shooting at the Raul Brasil public school in Suzano, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in southeast Brazil.

“It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Sao Paulo State Governor Joao Doria.

Tearful residents later held a street mass near the school, where flowers and candles commemorated the dead.

President Jair Bolsonaro expressed his sympathies on Twitter to “the families of this inhumane attack,” describing it as “a monstrosity and enormous cowardice.”