Marques Coleman, 14, said he saw the attacker holding a “big gun” just before the shooting began.

“I got up, I started running, he started shooting like, like 10 times. He shot at least 10 times,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

“My teacher started barricading the door with desks,” he said.

After standing up, the pupil said he saw “one of my classmates on the ground bleeding so bad”, another girl shot in the leg and a friend shot in the stomach.

A vigil was held on Wednesday evening in the city of 18,000 residents about 50 miles (80km) from Atlanta.

This was the 23rd US school shooting of 2024, according a database maintained by magazine Education Week, which counts 11 dead and 38 injured in such attacks so far this year.

David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting Database, told Reuters news agency that the shooting in Georgia was the first “planned attack” at a school during this autumn term.