Tokyo (EFE).- At least two soldiers died today in a shooting at the hands of a young trainee recruit, in a new violent incident in Japan.
The event took place in a training camp of the Self-Defense Forces (Army) in the center of the country, around 9 local time on Wednesday (00:00 GMT), and its circumstances are still being investigated by the Japanese authorities.
The Japanese government spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, confirmed these details of the shooting, although he initially stated that there were three wounded and that the shooter had been arrested.
This is an 18-year-old member of the Japanese troops in training, who has been arrested for attempted murder apparently carried out with an automatic rifle, according to local media.
The three wounded were at the shooting range together with the detainee at the time of the incident. Two of them died after being hospitalized in critical condition after the shooting and a third remains hospitalized with serious injuries.
At the moment the range of the victims has not been disclosed. If it is known that the detainee was an aspiring officer of the Self-Defense Forces, a status that he achieves after receiving initial basic training for three months.
The local media showed images of several firefighters, ambulances and police vehicles around the military installations where the event took place, and in which the members of the tenth land division of the Japanese forces practice shooting with pistols and automatic rifles. .
succession of violent incidents
The event takes place about three weeks after a man armed with a hunting rifle and a bladed weapon killed four, including two policemen, after stabbing two women and later barricading himself at his home in northern Japan.
It was the first time since 1990 that a violent event had killed more than two officers, in a country with one of the lowest homicide and firearms incident rates in the world.
Japan applies strict regulations on the possession of artifacts of this type, which is prohibited with the exception of specific cases such as their use by state security forces and bodies or hunting.
Less than a year ago, in July 2022, the former Japanese president Shinzo Abe was assassinated in an electoral act in the middle of the street by a man who shot him with a kind of domestically manufactured shotgun.
In addition, in mid-April the current Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, was the target of a failed attack attempt during another electoral act, when a man threw a homemade bomb at him that exploded shortly after the president was evacuated.