Child fatally shot by second child in Alaska after playing with toy guns

A child has died after being shot by a second child who picked up a rifle after the pair had been playing with toy guns in an Alaskan village.

Alaska State Troopers were notified by both tribal and local police on Sunday of the child’s death in Mountain Village, an official said.

Troopers responded and found “two children were playing with Nerf guns when one of them picked up a rifle and shot the other one”, the troopers said in an online statement.

The child was declared dead at the scene, and the body will be sent to Anchorage for a post-mortem examination, officials said.

An adult was inside the home at the time of the shooting, troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel told the Anchorage Daily News.

No criminal charges have been filed, and Mr McDaniel said the investigation is ongoing. The Anchorage newspaper reported it is rare for a gun owner in Alaska to be prosecuted when someone is killed or injured when a child obtains the weapon.

Few details about the children involved, including names and ages, will be released “due to the size of the community that this tragic event occurred and our requirement to protect juvenile information”, Mr McDaniel said.

Mountain Village, a Yup’ik community of 600 people who practise a traditional subsistence lifestyle, is located about 470 miles (756km) north west of Anchorage.