Thirteen killed in shooting spree at Azerbaijani university - Turkish TV

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

A police source told Reuters the gunman, a Georgian citizen of Azeri origin, was among the dead.

The government said it did not see a political motive behind the shooting at the State Oil Academy in Baku, capital of the mainly Muslim former Soviet republic which exports oil and gas to Europe from the Caspian Sea.

"According to the current information, 13 are dead and 10 are wounded," a spokesman for the general prosecutor’s office, Eldar Sultanov, was quoted by AFP as telling journalists at the scene.

The interior ministry said three foreign citizens – two Sudanese and one Syrian – were among the wounded, but provided no details on their conditions.

Turkish students who witnessed the incident described the ordeal.

"We were in an exam, we heard gunshots, we went out of the classroom in panic and saw a gunman opening fire on everyone. Three of my friends were shot," Bekir Belek, a Turkish student, told broadcaster CNNTurk from a hospital in Baku.

"Everywhere was covered in blood, all corridors. There are many wounded."

"We were trying to escape but had to return when my friends were shot,” Belek said. “We took them to the hospital."

Ibrahim Kar, another Turkish student at the hospital, said, "There were bodies at each floor."

The gunman, who reportedly killed himself, was of Georgian descent, CNNTurk reported.  

RIA-Novosti reported, citing APA, that the shooting may have been a result of a conflict between Azerbaijani and foreign students at the college.

Founded in 1920, the academy was the first institute of higher learning in Europe and Asia focused on the petroleum industry and is among the most prestigious universities in the former Soviet Union.

Among its most well-known graduates are former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, head of Russian oil company Lukoil Vagit Alekperov and Angolan President Jos Eduardo dos Santos.