Global Courant 2023-05-08 00:47:38
Serbia’s education minister handed in his resignation on Sunday after two mass shootings, including one at a primary school, killed 17 people as the European country’s government urged citizens to surrender all unregistered weapons. or risk imprisonment.
Education Minister Branko Ruzic is the first Serbian official to resign over the shootings, despite widespread calls for senior officials to resign in the wake of the successive bloodshed. Ruzic cited the “catastrophic tragedy that has engulfed our country” to explain his decision.
Shortly after the school bombing in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, on Wednesday, Ruzic was quick to blame “the malign, pernicious influence of the Internet, video games, so-called Western values.” Such criticism is common in the Balkan country, where pro-Russian and anti-Western sentiment has run rampant in recent years.
On Sunday, the Interior Ministry said individuals could turn in illegally owned weapons without charge between Monday and June 8. Those who flout the order will face prosecution and, if convicted, possibly years behind bars, government officials have warned.
Police said the amnesty would cover guns, grenades, ammunition and other weapons.
People attend a funeral for a slain security guard who was killed in the shooting at a Belgrade school on Saturday. (Zorana Jevtic/Reuters)
In his third speech to the country since the killings, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said: “We expect to get millions of bullets that way.”
The populist leader criticized the opposition for planning protests against his government for its handling of the crisis, saying: “It’s not being done anywhere in the world. It’s bad for the country.”
Weekend funerals were held for the victims of the school shootings in Belgrade on Wednesday and in a rural area south of the capital on Thursday evening. The violence, which also left 21 people injured, has stunned and tormented the country.
While Serbia is awash in guns and tops the European list of registered guns per capita, it is no stranger to crisis situations following the 1990s wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Forensic police are at work on Friday in the village of Dubona, about 50 kilometers south of Belgrade. A gunman killed several people and injured more in a drive-by attack in Dubona late Thursday. (Armin Durgut/The Associated Press)
The most recent previous mass shooting was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people.
The assailant in the country’s first mass school shooting was a 13-year-old boy who opened fire on his fellow students, killing seven girls, a boy and a school security guard.
The next day, a 20-year-old man fired randomly into two villages in central Serbia, killing eight people. Both he and the boy in the attack on the primary school were arrested.
As the country struggles to come to terms with what happened, authorities promised a gun crackdown and said they would increase security in schools and across the state.
Parents of 13-year-old Ema Kobiljski, center, mourn during a funeral procession in Belgrade on Saturday. Kobiljski was killed in a school shooting on Wednesday. (Armin Durgut/The Associated Press)
“We invite all citizens who possess illegal weapons to heed this call, go to the nearest police station and hand in weapons for which they do not have the proper documents,” said police official Jelena Lakicevic.
The voluntary surrender applies to all firearms, explosives, weapon parts and ammunition that people have illegally in their homes, Lakicevic said.
