A 40-year-old Cypriot man shot his estranged wife and two under-aged children and then turned the gun on himself, the police said on Wednesday.
A police source said the man had called his estranged wife to talk and they met on mid-afternoon Wednesday in a busy Nicosia suburb, but he started shooting with an army-issued assault rifle when the meeting developed into a shouting argument.
He then took his own life by shooting himself in the head, the police source said.
Doctors said that the woman, their 9-year-old daughter and the man were pronounced dead when they were taken to hospital, their 14-year-old son is alive but in a critical condition.
Army assault rifles are issued to all Greek Cypriot males after completing a 24-month service in the small Cypriot National Guard, but they are seldom used in crime of any kind.
The shooting caused a shock in the tightly knit Cypriot society which is unaccustomed to this kind of crime.