Czech police say 14 people were shot dead by a gunman at a university in Prague
Another 25 people were injured, 10 seriously, and police say the gunman - a student - was found dead
Police believe the shooter was connected to the murders of two people in a forest near Prague last week
The shooter was from a village near the Czech capital, and his father was found dead earlier on Thursday
The incident occurred at Charles University - it is not being treated as a terrorist incident
Prime Minister Petr Fiala says he has cancelled upcoming engagements in light of the "tragic events"
That's it for our continuing coverage of the mass shooting in Prague - which we now know is the worst in the country's history.
We'll be updating our news story through the coming hours.
This page was written by Nadia Ragozhina, Aoife Walsh, Rob Corp, Gabriela Pomeroy, Emily McGarvey, Gianluca Avagnina and Emily McGarvey. The editor was Laura Gozzi.
Image source, EPAAs we've been reporting, police in the Czech Republic have said this evening that 14 people have been killed in a mass shooting in the capital Prague.
Here's what we know about the events of the past few hours:
More dramatic video of the events in Prague have emerged since this afternoon.
In one, people are seen leaping from building ledges to safety at the site of the shooting:
Prague: Dramatic video from city shows people seen leaping from building ledge
At this evening's news conference, Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said a large number of weapons have been found at the university building.
"We could have had high tens of victims without a quick police response," Rakusan added.
The Czech Republic's interior minister and police have been speaking at a news conference, where they said officers are working on the theory that today's shooter was responsible for the deaths of two people last week in the Klanovicky forest near Prague.
They believed the shooter - who has no criminal history - chose his victims at random.
Officials also confirmed that 14 people were shot dead in Prague today and 25 were injured, with 10 seriously wounded.
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor
Image source, MARTIN DIVISEK/EPAThe shooter had been due to attend a lecture in another university building
Widely named as David K, the 24-year-old behind the killing of more than 15 people is said by police to have left the village of Hostoun 20km (12 miles) west of Prague, after shooting his father.
He had been a student at Charles University's Institute of World History based at the arts faculty in Palach Square.
And he was clearly an engaged student. Earlier this year a man by the same name won a prize from Prague's Polish Institute for a bachelor's thesis on revolutionary events in 1846 in Krakow and other areas that are now part of Poland.
Police say he was due to attend a lecture this afternoon in a separate university building in Celetna Street, a few minutes' walk away from the arts faculty and just off Prague's Old Town Square. Officers had gone there looking for him before the shooting took place.
What we don't know is what took him instead to the main arts faculty building carrying a gun.
Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said he had gone to Prague to take his life and that he was "inspired by a horrific event, a similar event, abroad".
Although unconfirmed, that event is being interpreted as a 7 December shooting in Bryansk in southern Russia, when a 14-year-old girl took a shotgun into her school and killed a classmate before turning the gun on herself.
We've just had comments from Vít Rakušan, the Czech interior minister. He has sought to reassure Prague residents, saying there was now no imminent danger.
He's been speaking to the media about the incident. He expressed his condolences to "all the victims of this unprecedentedly insane act, which the Czech Republic has never experienced in its history".
He said it was something everyone had been "terrified of", something that was difficult to prevent.
"The tragedy is deep, the tragedy will certainly have many other consequences for the atmosphere in the school, for the loved ones, for those who were evacuated from the building, and who witnessed the tragic event."
Let's take a look at where the events in Prague unfolded earlier today.
A man was seen with a rifle on the ledge of the Charles University Arts faculty, which is located on Jan Palach Square in central Prague.
The arts faculty is right in the heart of historic Prague, just a stone's throw from the Old Town Square and the picturesque 14th-century Charles Bridge over the River Vltava.
Image source, .Another dramatic video from the scene shows people crouched on a ledge of a building as police respond to the shooting.
Officers can also be seen rushing towards a university building in central Prague.
Police say they have found the body of the gunman, who was a student at Charles University.
More details are emerging about the mass shooting in Prague, here's what we know so far:
A local art gallery director has been speaking about the moment he saw the gunman taking shots with an automatic weapon.
Petr Nedoma, director of the Rudolfinum Gallery at a concert hall across Palach Square, told Czech TV he saw the shooting take place.
"I saw a young person [from] the gallery who had some weapon in his hand, like an automatic weapon, and shooting toward the Manes Bridge.
"Repeatedly, with some interruptions, then I saw as he shot, put hands up and threw the weapon down on the street, it lay there on the pedestrian crossing."
Here's another video from the scene, which we've received from AP news agency, showing Czech police scanning the balcony of the university building that was evacuated.
The building is home to Charles University's faculty of arts in Jan Palach Square.
Authorities in the Czech Republic have been reacting to the mass shooting in Prague, which police said has left at least 15 people dead.
The mayor of Prague, Bohuslav Svoboda, told Czech media: "We always thought that this was a thing that did not concern us. Now it turns out that, unfortunately, our world is also changing and the problem of the individual shooter is emerging here as well."
Katerina Vodvarkova, a foreign news reporter at TV Nova, was near the site of the attack when it occurred and told the BBC that "everyone is in shock."
"Personally I never experienced anything like this in Prague. I watched students being evacuated and I had tears in my eyes that they had to witness this," she said.
"This is the busiest season for Prague, where we have our most famous Christmas market. It breaks my heart that visitors have to witness this."
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor
Image source, Lukas Kabon/AnadoluThe Old Town Square in Prague is popular with tourists, especially before Christmas
The arts faculty of Charles University is right in the heart of historic Prague, just a stone's throw from the Old Town Square and the picturesque 14th-Century Charles Bridge over the River Vltava.
Prague's Old Town is popular with tourists throughout the year and in the run-up to Christmas it bustles with visitors. Christmas markets are currently held on both the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square.
The university is itself steeped in history as is the faculty itself. Philosophy student Jan Palach set fire to himself in central Prague in 1969, in protest at the Soviet occupation of his country. His name lives on in the square where the faculty is based.
We now know the attacker was also a student and began shooting on the fourth floor.
Students at the faculty, in common with students across Europe, were about to end their academic semester tomorrow ahead of the Christmas holidays.
Up to 200 students were quickly moved to safety over the road to the Rudolfinum arts complex.
The gunman's "lifeless body" was found at the university, the police president says.
He also confirms that 15 people were killed and 24 were hurt in the attack, and adds that it's thought the shooter was inspired by similar massacres that have taken place abroad.
The mass shooting is not linked to international terrorism, Vit Rakusan, the Czech minister of the interior, told reporters.
The police say the gunman was a 24-year-old from a village 21km (13m) outside Prague.
Police also say the suspect's father was found dead earlier today.
More than 15 people are dead after the shooting at a university in central Prague, the Czech police president says.
The gunman was a student at the faculty of arts at Charles University in Prague, he adds.
Czech police are now holding a press conference to update the public on the mass shooting.
We'll bring you key lines on this page right as we get them.
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor
Thursday afternoon's attack at Charles University's arts faculty is the worst fatal shooting since Czech independence 30 years ago.
The most recent gun attack was in December 2019 at a hospital in Ostrava, when a man opened fire in a trauma clinic waiting room and killed four men and two women, before turning the gun on himself.
In February 2015 a local man opened fire in a restaurant in the eastern town of Uhersky Brod. Eight people died in the attack.
Even though gun attacks are rare in the Czech Republic, hunting with guns is popular. In 2019 the Czech government tried in vain to overturn an EU ban on semi-automatic rifles for private use brought in after a series of deadly jihadist attacks across Europe.