A teacher was fatally stabbed by a pupil at an elementary school in northwestern Slovakia on Tuesday, and two other people were seriously injured, authorities said, in the latest in a string of violent attacks at Slovak schools in recent years.
Police said a 13-year-old suspect, described by other reports as an eighth grade pupil typically between 13 and 15 years old, was taken into custody and that the situation was under control with no further threat to the public. A motive was not immediately known. The stabbing occurred at a school in Staškov, a small town of about 2,750 people in the Čadca district near Slovakia’s border with the Czech Republic and Poland.
The teacher who died was a 61-year-old woman. Emergency Medical Service Operations Centre spokesperson Petra Klimešová said the woman suffered injuries incompatible with life. Reports differed on the age of the second injured adult, a teacher, with one account identifying her as 41 and others identifying her as 44; both accounts agreed she was airlifted to a hospital in Žilina with a stab wound to the chest. A child, described by police as a pupil, was also critically injured and transported by helicopter to a hospital in Martin.
What We Know So Far
Emergency services dispatched two ground ambulances and two rescue helicopters to the scene. Police said they are investigating the incident as a violent crime, and the circumstances and motive behind the attack remain under investigation.
Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, Education Minister Tomáš Drucker and Health Minister Kamil Šaško traveled to Staškov following the attack.
Slovakia has experienced a series of violent school attacks in recent years, though accounts differed on some details of the country’s history with this kind of violence. One account described an 18-year-old fatally stabbing a 51-year-old deputy principal and an 18-year-old student at a high school in northern Slovakia in 2025, a separate 2020 attack at a high school in the town of Vrutky in which a 22-year-old former student killed the deputy principal and wounded five people, and a 2022 attack at a high school in Nováky in which a student injured a female classmate.
A different account described a January 2025 knife attack in the town of Spišská Stará Ves in which an 18-year-old killed a fellow pupil and a teacher and wounded another pupil, and separately described a 2020 stabbing at an elementary school in central Slovakia that killed a teacher, characterizing it as the first violent school attack in the country’s history.
These two accounts differ on key details of the 2020 incident, including whether it occurred at a high school or an elementary school and whether a deputy principal or a teacher was killed, a discrepancy that had not been resolved as of the latest reporting.
What Authorities Are Saying
President Peter Pellegrini said he was deeply saddened by the tragedy and shocked that this marked yet another case of a student attacking teachers and a classmate. He said aggression and an atmosphere of intolerance, which he attributed partly to social media and some politicians, are poisoning public discourse and influencing children’s behavior in schools. “Such events serve as a serious warning to our entire society,” Pellegrini said, calling for greater calm, respect and mutual regard in society rather than further radicalization.
Prime Minister Robert Fico said he was following developments in Staškov with great concern and expressed his sincere condolences, saying he was personally deeply saddened by the incident. Both leaders offered condolences to the victims’ families.
Why This Matters
The attack adds to a troubling pattern of school violence in Slovakia that has recurred across multiple incidents over the past five years, spanning both elementary and secondary schools and involving both current and former students as attackers. Pellegrini’s explicit link between the attack and what he described as a broader societal climate of aggression and intolerance, amplified by social media and political rhetoric, frames the incident as part of a larger concern about Slovak society rather than an isolated act of youth violence.
The involvement of a 13-year-old suspect, notably younger than the attackers in several of the country’s previous school violence incidents, may raise additional questions about how authorities and the Slovak education system address warning signs among younger students, given that most of the country’s prior school attacks have involved older teenagers.
What Happens Next
Police are continuing their investigation into the attack and the motive behind it, with the 13-year-old suspect in custody. Authorities have not indicated when additional details about the case might be released.
Given the pattern of recurring school violence in Slovakia, the attack is likely to renew public and political debate over school safety measures and the broader social climate Pellegrini referenced in his remarks, though it remains unclear whether the government will pursue specific new policy responses following this incident.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press, Caliber.Az, TV JOJ and Euronews via AFP
