“I was in the classroom and someone suddenly came in. I saw him, I saw the shooter. As soon as he entered, he’d started shooting. Six, five times. So I started running.”

We’re speaking with a man who survived when Rickard Andersson opened fire, killing 11 people, at an adult education centre in Sweden’s worst mass shooting.

“I fell over and he started shooting towards me and I dropped my phone as I ran off and managed to escape,” the witness says.

As he shares the visceral detail of his account, he becomes emotional as he describes losing friends before his eyes.

“It was very scary,” says the man, who asked not to be named.

“I saw him shoot others. So I’m having a really, really tough time right now. I haven’t been able to sleep.”

Orebro shooting: What we know about the attacker

He came back to the scene of the attack on Wednesday – where he used to go to lessons each day – and felt unable to comprehend how a place of safety became a place of terror in a matter of minutes.

The adult education centre in Orebro sits between two schools and many gathered at the police cordon the morning after the attack.

We watched as children lit candles with their parents before starting their day. At the cordon clutching his brown briefcase we meet Marcus Ahltun.

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He’s the headteacher at one of the schools and had been in his office when he heard the gunshots next door and made the rapid decision to lockdown the school.

“I heard screams, and then I heard shots fired. I immediately decided that we needed to shelter in the school,” he told us.

Being metres away from the atrocity he said was “a surreal, numb feeling”.

Numb is how many have felt at the site today. Some came alone to pay their respects, some gathered in groups. We watched friends clutch and hold each other tightly.

Orebro is a university city and a young place with diverse communities.

People in the city and throughout the country are both mourning the loss of the victims and asking themselves how a gunman was able to enter an educational facility and kill.

Almost 3,000 people have been killed in fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN has said. 

Vivian van de Perre, a senior UN official based in the city of Goma, said the “escalating violence” in the area has “led to immense human suffering, displacement, and a growing humanitarian crisis”.

Bodies are decomposing on the streets of Goma, with 2,000 more collected across the region.

Some 900 more bodies are in morgues, with Ms van de Perre saying her organisation “expects the number [of those killed] to go up”.

Hundreds of thousands more remain displaced, while thousands of criminals allegedly broke out from a Goma jail.

Ms van de Perre said there is huge pressure on water, food, shelter and sanitation and conditions are “really, really dire”.

The UN also fears possible disease outbreaks, and one lynching has been documented.

“It is imperative that all parties cease hostilities and commit to political dialogue… and work towards a peaceful resolution to this crisis,” Ms van de Perre said.

Providing aid for displaced people has been made more difficult by US President Donald Trump’s move to shut down USAID, with the UN saying this is “hampering operations”.

The UN said that violence has continued to escalate despite the rebels M23 declaring a unilateral ceasefire on Monday.

The M23 rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts. They seized Goma in three days after fierce battles with Congolese forces.

The rebels gained ground in eastern DRC on Wednesday despite the ceasefire, taking control of a town 60 miles from the provincial capital of Bukavu.

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The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court called on Wednesday for the presentation of information and evidence regarding atrocities committed in eastern DRC.

“The office will continue to investigate alleged crimes committed by any person, irrespective of affiliation or nationality and will not be limited to particular individuals, parties or members of specific groups,” the statement said.

Goma, which remains under occupation, is home to two million people and is at the heart of a region home to trillions of dollars in mineral wealth.

The M23 is the most potent of the more than 100 armed groups active in the area.

Experts and analysts have expressed concern that Rwanda aims to take control of parts of DRC to ensure access to minerals.

But Rwanda’s government has framed the conflict as the defence of ethnic Tutsis in eastern DRC from ethnic Hutu forces linked to the genocide in Rwanda three decades ago that killed some 800,000 Tutsis, moderate Hutus and others.

Rwandan forces have entered DRC in the past while asserting the same aim, helping to fuel what has become one of Africa’s longest-simmering wars, with millions of Congolese displaced.

Donald Trump’s announcement that he wants to “develop” Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” has been described as “absurd” and “entirely unrealistic”.

During a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Tuesday, Mr Trump proposed that the two million people living in Gaza could be moved to Jordan, Egypt – and beyond.

Gazans hit back at Trump’s plan; US latest

While it is not clear how Gaza will be rebuilt when the current conflict between Hamas and Israel ends – it is equally uncertain how the US would come to “own” Gaza, resettle its population, and redevelop the land.

What did Trump say about the Gaza Strip?

Mr Trump described Gaza as a “demolition site” where “virtually every building is down”.

Laying out his idea of what would happen beyond an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, he proposed: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too.”

He said America would be “responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site”, before it would “get rid of the destroyed buildings”, and “level it out”.

He envisioned an “economic development”, which he described as the “Riveria of the Middle East” – that would create thousands and thousands of jobs”.

“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs,” he added.

The White House has described the plan as “out-of-the-box” and “visionary”.

What about the population?

Gaza’s two million people would not return to their territory under Mr Trump’s plans.

Instead, he suggested building “various domains” for them to “permanently… live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again”.

This could take the form of “numerous sites” or “one large site”, he added.

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The only locations he mentioned by name were Jordan and Egypt, which he said, despite their leaders consistently refusing to resettle more Palestinian refugees, would “give us the kind of land we need to get this done”.

He described the new sites as a “beautiful area to resettle people, permanently in nice homes, where they can be happy and not shot… and killed… like what’s happening in Gaza”.

He said “neighbouring countries of great wealth” could finance them – without stipulating to what extent this would involve the US.

There were no details on whether the plans change the current US position of a two-state solution for the Israeli and Palestinian people.

Who controls Gaza – and who has occupied it in the past?

Gaza has been under the control of Hamas since 2007 – after it dominated the 2006 elections and subsequent violent clashes with fellow Palestinian group Fatah.

The area made up of Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank has a long and complicated history – with both Israel and Palestinians laying claim to various parts of it.

In 1917, the British took control of what was then known as Palestine from the Ottoman Empire.

Under the Balfour Declaration, they promised to create a Jewish homeland there.

Jewish people then began migrating to the region in large numbers – accelerated by the threat of Nazism in Europe and the Second World War, which created tension with the Palestinian people already living there.

When the United Nations was set up after the war in 1947, it proposed a partition plan – whereby roughly 45% of the land would belong to the Palestinian people and 55% to Jewish people. Jerusalem, which has particular sensitivities because of its religious significance to both sides, was proposed as a separate international territory.

This plan was never actioned – and instead – the state of Israel was declared in 1948.

The Arab-Israeli war that broke out immediately after the declaration saw 750,000 Palestinian people forced from their homes in what was known as the Nakba – or “catastrophe” in English. They were given refugee status by the UN and fled to neighbouring countries.

The Palestinians retained control of two small areas – what we now know as Gaza and the West Bank.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. They also took control of the Golan Heights, an area belonging to Syria. This saw hundreds of thousands more Palestinians forced from their homes.

During his first presidency, Donald Trump recognised Israel’s control of the Golan Heights.

Different groups have fought for control of Gaza since then – including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

There was hope for a two-state solution – one Israel and one Palestine – when their leaders signed the Oslo Accords committing to peace in the region within five years.

This never materialised, however, and Gaza has become increasingly cut off from outside resources.

The UN runs refugee camps for millions of displaced Palestinians – both inside Gaza and the West Bank – and in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Before the 2023 war broke out between Israel and Hamas, tensions were high among Palestinian communities as Israel continued to expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Trump Gaza plan ‘absurd’ and US has ‘no authority’

Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, which as fellow Arab nations support the Palestinian cause, immediately rejected Mr Trump’s ideas.

They, along with Syria and Lebanon, are already struggling to support millions of displaced Palestinians.

Hamas described the proposals as “ridiculous and absurd” in a statement from one of its officials Sami Abu Zuhri.

The Palestinian Liberation Organisation reiterated its support for a two-state solution.

Sky News Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said the plans have left politicians and diplomats across the region “speechless”.

“It’s entirely unrealistic for so many reasons,” he says.

Forcing Palestinians from Gaza would breach their right under international law to self-determination – and would constitute ethnic cleansing, he adds.

It would also, according to the chair of the UK’s Defence Select Committee, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, require “a minimum of 50,000” US troops in the region for several years.

This would prove a “massive logistical challenge”, as US military resources in other parts of the world have to be redirected there.

It is also out of step with Mr Trump’s previous indications he wants to scale back US involvement in the Middle East – and adopt a more protectionist foreign policy.

Many Gazans have endured horrendous living conditions in the hope Gaza will be rebuilt as part of an independent Palestinian state.

As such, most would not want to leave, Bunkall says, adding: “Ask any Gazan and they will tell you it is their home, however hellish.”

The international community has been involved in the rebuilding of war-torn countries throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. In this sense, the US could be mandated as a “reconstruction power” in Gaza.

However, in cases such as post-Second World War Germany or Japan – allies handed back the territory after rebuilding – not resettled their residents elsewhere.