Global Courant 2023-05-05 07:32:18
Belgrade, Serbia — A gunman killed at least eight people and wounded 13 in a drive-by attack near a town near Belgrade late Thursday, Serbia’s second such mass killing in two days, state television reported.
The attacker randomly shot at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, the RTS report said early Friday. Police were looking for a 21-year-old suspect who fled after the attack, the report said.
The shooting took place a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns in a rampage at a Belgrade school that left eight of his fellow students and a school security guard dead.
The bloodshed sent a shock wave through a Balkan country unaccustomed to mass killings.
Although Serbia is overrun with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings are extremely rare. Wednesday’s school shooting was the first in the country’s modern history. The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called Thursday’s shooting “an act of terrorism,” state media reported.
Special police and helicopter units have been sent to the region, as well as ambulances, it added.
Other details were not immediately available and police had not issued any statements.
Earlier on Thursday, Serbian students, many in black and flowers, filled the streets around the school in central Belgrade, silently paying tribute to peers killed a day earlier. Thousands lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys to commemorate the nine dead on Wednesday morning.
The tragedy also sparked a debate about the general state of the nation after decades of crises and conflicts, the aftermath of which has created a state of permanent uncertainty and instability, along with deep political divisions.
Authorities took action on Thursday to step up gun control as police urged citizens to keep their guns under lock and key and away from children.
Police have said the teen used his father’s guns to carry out the attack. He had been planning it for a month, drawing classroom sketches and making lists of the children he planned to kill, police said Wednesday.
The boy, who had visited shooting ranges with his father and apparently had the code to his father’s safe, took two guns from the safe where they were stored along with bullets, police said on Wednesday.
The Wednesday morning shooting at Vladislav Ribnikar’s primary school also had seven people hospitalised: six children and a teacher. A girl who was shot in the head remains in life-threatening condition and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said 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 injured victims. A three-day mourning period begins on Friday morning.
Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn of a crisis in the school system and demand changes. Authorities shrugged off responsibility, with some officials blaming Western influence.
The gunman, who was identified by police as Kosta Kecmanovic, has not given any motive for his actions.
Upon entering his school, Kecmanovic first killed the security guard and three students in the hallway. He then went to the history classroom where he shot a teacher before pointing his gun at the students.
Kecmanovic then loaded the gun in the schoolyard and called the police himself, although they had already received a warning from a school official. When he called, Kecmanovic told officers on duty that he was a “psychopath who needs to calm down,” police said.
The children who died on Wednesday were seven girls and one boy. One of the girls has French nationality, according to the French Foreign Ministry.
Authorities have said Kecmanovic is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental institution, while his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public safety because his son got hold of guns.
“I think we are all guilty. I think each of us has a certain responsibility, that we allowed some things that we should not allow,” Zoran Sefik, a Belgrade resident, said during Wednesday night’s vigil at the school.
Jovan Lazovic, another Belgrade resident, said he was not surprised: “It was a matter of days that something like this could happen, taking into account what is happening in the world and here,” he said.
Gun culture is widespread in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: the region has one of the highest numbers of guns per capita in Europe. Celebrations often involve shooting guns into the air, and the cult of the warrior is part of national identities.
Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the abundance of guns in a deeply divided country like Serbia, where convicted war criminals are glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability resulting from the conflicts of the 1990s, as well as continued economic hardship, could trigger such outbursts.
“We’ve had too much violence for too long,” psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin told N1 television. “Children copy models. We need to eliminate negative models… and create a different value system.”
