At least eight people have been killed and 13
injured in Serbia in a series of shootings south of Belgrade, state-run
media has reported, just one day after a school shooting also saw nine
killed in the capital.
The shootings started
late on Thursday near the town of Mladenovac when an attacker opened
fire with an automatic weapon from a moving vehicle and then fled, state
broadcaster RTS television reported. Seven of the injured are in a critical condition.
Police searching for the suspect, believed to be a
21-year-old man, have surrounded an area where he is believed to be
hiding, RTS reported. A heavy police presence in the area saw
helicopters and drones flying overhead as officers searched amid
difficult terrain.
Bratislav Gašić, the
minister of internal affairs, called the attack “an act of terrorism”.
The director of intelligence agency the BIA, Aleksandar Vulin, and
minister of health Danica Grujičić are reported to have visited the
injured in hospital.
The attacked fired shots
in multiple villages around Mladenovac, broadcaster RTS reported,
firstly in the village of Dubona, then Malo Orašje and then Šepšin.
Local reports suggested a police officer and his sister were among the dead in Malo Orašje.
Police
named Wednesday’s shooter as Kosta Kecmanović and said he had been a
pupil at the school since 2019. They said he had used two of his
father’s guns for the shooting and may have been plotting the attack for
a month.
The head of Belgrade police, Veselin
Milić, said the teenager also had two petrol bombs and “made a list of
kids he planned to kill and their classes”. Milić identified the dead
pupils as seven girls and a boy born between 2009 and 2011.
Kecmanović
is too young to face criminal charges and will be placed in a
psychiatric institution. His parents have also been arrested.
The second shooting happened while Serbia is
preparing for three days of mourning, beginning on Friday morning. On
Thursday, thousands lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave
toys outside the school to commemorate the victims of Wednesday’s
attack.
Tributes included heaps of flowers,
small teddy bears, soccer balls. A grey and pink toy elephant was placed
by the school fence along with messages of grief, and a girl’s ballet
shoes hung from the fence.
The Balkan nation is
struggling to come to terms with what has happened. Though awash with
weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings are still
extremely rare – it is the first school shooting in Serbia’s modern
history. The previous mass shooting was in 2013 when a war veteran
killed 13 people in the central Serbian village of Velika Ivanca.
The tragedy also sparked a debate about the
general state of the nation following decades of crises and conflicts
whose aftermath have created a state of permanent insecurity and
instability, along with deep political divisions.
Authorities
on Thursday moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to
lock up their guns and keep them safe, and away from children. “The
Ministry of Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns
with care, locked up in safes or closets so they are out of reach of
others, particularly children,” police said in a statement.
The
shooting on Wednesday in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school also left
seven people hospitalised – six children and a teacher. One girl who was
shot in the head remains in a life-threatening condition, and a boy is
in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said on Thursday
morning.
To help people deal with the tragedy,
authorities announced they were setting up a helpline. Hundreds answered
a call to donate blood for the wounded victims.
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