Belgrade: An attacker killed at least eight people and injured 13 in a drive-by Shooting in a town near Belgrade Thursday late night second such mass murder Serbia In two days, state television reported.
RTS reported early Friday that the attacker used an automatic weapon to fire randomly at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital. Reports said police were searching for a 21-year-old suspect who fled the scene after the attack.
The report added that Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gacic called the shooting a “terrorist act”.
It added that special police and helicopter units have been dispatched to the area as well as ambulances.
No other details were immediately available, and police had not issued a statement.
In Belgrade on Wednesday, a 13-year-old boy opened fire at a school with his father’s gun, killing eight of his classmates and a school guard. The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation that was unaccustomed to such mass killings.
Dozens of Serbian students, many dressed in black and carrying flowers, paid a silent tribute on Thursday to comrades killed the day before.
Students filled the streets around the school in central Belgrade as they came from all over the city. Thousands of people lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys in memory of eight children and a school guard killed on Wednesday morning.
People cried and hugged outside the school in front of piles of flowers, little teddy bears, soccer balls. A gray and pink toy elephant was placed on the school fence with messages of condolence, and a girl’s ballet shoes hung from the fence.
The Balkan country is struggling to recover from what happened. Although littered with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings have still been extremely rare – and this is the first school shooting in Serbia’s modern history.
The tragedy sparked a debate about the nation’s normalcy after decades of crises and conflicts that resulted in deep political divisions as well as enduring insecurity and instability.
Authorities took steps to promote gun control on Thursday, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them safe away from children.
Police have said that the teen used his father’s guns to carry out the attack. Police said Wednesday that he had planned it for a month, making sketches of classrooms and making lists of the children he planned to kill.
Police said Wednesday that the boy, who had accompanied his father to the shooting range and apparently had the code to his father’s safe, took two guns from the safe where they were kept along with bullets.
“The Ministry of the Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns carefully, locking them in safes or cupboards, so that they are out of reach of others, especially children,” police said in a statement. ” Also announced tighter controls on gun owners in the future.
Seven people, including six children and a teacher, were hospitalized in Wednesday morning’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school. Doctors said Thursday morning that a girl was in critical condition with a bullet wound to the head and a boy was in critical condition with a spinal injury.
To help people deal with the tragedy, officials announced they were setting up a helpline. Hundreds of people answered a call to donate blood for the injured victims. The three-day mourning period will begin on Friday morning.
Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to demand change and to warn of a crisis in the school system. Officials shirked responsibility, with some blaming Western influence rather than a deep social crisis in the country.
The shooter, identified by police as Kosta Kekmanovic, has given no motive for his actions.
Upon entering his school, Kekmanovic first killed the guard and three students in the hallway. He then went to the history class where he shot the teacher before turning the gun on the students.
Kekmanovic then unloaded the gun in the school yard and called the police himself, although he had already received an alert from a school official. Police said that when he made the call, Kekmanovic told duty officers that he was a “psychopath who needed to calm down.”
Seven girls, a boy and the school’s security guard were among those killed. One of the girls was a French national, the French Foreign Ministry said.
Authorities have said that Kekmanovic is too young to be charged and prosecuted. He is placed in a mental asylum while his father is taken into custody on suspicion of endangering public safety because his son has gotten hold of guns.
“I think we are all guilty. I think each of us has some responsibility, that we have allowed some things (shouldn’t have happened),” Belgrade resident Zoran Sefik told the school on Wednesday evening. said during the pass vigil.
Jovan Lajovic, another Belgrade resident, said he was not surprised: “It is a matter of days when something like this could happen, taking into account what is happening here and there in the world,” he said.
Gun culture is widespread in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: the region tops Europe in the number of guns per capita. Cannons are often fired into the air in ceremonies and the cult of the warrior is part of the national identity. Nevertheless, the last mass shooting occurred in 2013 when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Experts have repeatedly warned about the danger posed by the number of weapons in a highly divided country like Serbia, where convicted war criminals are glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unreported. They also noted that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s as well as ongoing economic hardship could trigger such outbreaks.
“We’ve had too much violence for too long,” psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin told N1 television. “Kids copy models. We need to eliminate negative models and create a different system of values.”
RTS reported early Friday that the attacker used an automatic weapon to fire randomly at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital. Reports said police were searching for a 21-year-old suspect who fled the scene after the attack.
The report added that Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gacic called the shooting a “terrorist act”.
It added that special police and helicopter units have been dispatched to the area as well as ambulances.
No other details were immediately available, and police had not issued a statement.
In Belgrade on Wednesday, a 13-year-old boy opened fire at a school with his father’s gun, killing eight of his classmates and a school guard. The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation that was unaccustomed to such mass killings.
Dozens of Serbian students, many dressed in black and carrying flowers, paid a silent tribute on Thursday to comrades killed the day before.
Students filled the streets around the school in central Belgrade as they came from all over the city. Thousands of people lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys in memory of eight children and a school guard killed on Wednesday morning.
People cried and hugged outside the school in front of piles of flowers, little teddy bears, soccer balls. A gray and pink toy elephant was placed on the school fence with messages of condolence, and a girl’s ballet shoes hung from the fence.
The Balkan country is struggling to recover from what happened. Although littered with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings have still been extremely rare – and this is the first school shooting in Serbia’s modern history.
The tragedy sparked a debate about the nation’s normalcy after decades of crises and conflicts that resulted in deep political divisions as well as enduring insecurity and instability.
Authorities took steps to promote gun control on Thursday, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them safe away from children.
Police have said that the teen used his father’s guns to carry out the attack. Police said Wednesday that he had planned it for a month, making sketches of classrooms and making lists of the children he planned to kill.
Police said Wednesday that the boy, who had accompanied his father to the shooting range and apparently had the code to his father’s safe, took two guns from the safe where they were kept along with bullets.
“The Ministry of the Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns carefully, locking them in safes or cupboards, so that they are out of reach of others, especially children,” police said in a statement. ” Also announced tighter controls on gun owners in the future.
Seven people, including six children and a teacher, were hospitalized in Wednesday morning’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school. Doctors said Thursday morning that a girl was in critical condition with a bullet wound to the head and a boy was in critical condition with a spinal injury.
To help people deal with the tragedy, officials announced they were setting up a helpline. Hundreds of people answered a call to donate blood for the injured victims. The three-day mourning period will begin on Friday morning.
Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to demand change and to warn of a crisis in the school system. Officials shirked responsibility, with some blaming Western influence rather than a deep social crisis in the country.
The shooter, identified by police as Kosta Kekmanovic, has given no motive for his actions.
Upon entering his school, Kekmanovic first killed the guard and three students in the hallway. He then went to the history class where he shot the teacher before turning the gun on the students.
Kekmanovic then unloaded the gun in the school yard and called the police himself, although he had already received an alert from a school official. Police said that when he made the call, Kekmanovic told duty officers that he was a “psychopath who needed to calm down.”
Seven girls, a boy and the school’s security guard were among those killed. One of the girls was a French national, the French Foreign Ministry said.
Authorities have said that Kekmanovic is too young to be charged and prosecuted. He is placed in a mental asylum while his father is taken into custody on suspicion of endangering public safety because his son has gotten hold of guns.
“I think we are all guilty. I think each of us has some responsibility, that we have allowed some things (shouldn’t have happened),” Belgrade resident Zoran Sefik told the school on Wednesday evening. said during the pass vigil.
Jovan Lajovic, another Belgrade resident, said he was not surprised: “It is a matter of days when something like this could happen, taking into account what is happening here and there in the world,” he said.
Gun culture is widespread in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: the region tops Europe in the number of guns per capita. Cannons are often fired into the air in ceremonies and the cult of the warrior is part of the national identity. Nevertheless, the last mass shooting occurred in 2013 when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Experts have repeatedly warned about the danger posed by the number of weapons in a highly divided country like Serbia, where convicted war criminals are glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unreported. They also noted that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s as well as ongoing economic hardship could trigger such outbreaks.
“We’ve had too much violence for too long,” psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin told N1 television. “Kids copy models. We need to eliminate negative models and create a different system of values.”