BELGRADE, Serbia – The 13-year-old boy who opened fire at his school in the Serbian capital on Wednesday. He Drew classrooms and wrote a list of people he wanted to target in a carefully planned attack, police said. Before his arrest, he killed eight fellow students and a school guard. According to senior police officer Veselin Milic, the shooter first killed a security guard at Belgrade. School and then three students in the corridor. He then entered a history classroom — apparently chosen because it was near the entrance — and opened fire again, Milic said. The attacker called the police himself when the attack ended. Although authorities had received a call about the shooting two minutes earlier.
According to the police, the suspect is a seventh grader in the school. A school shooting has Rocked Serbia According to the statement, the boy used his father’s gun. Terrified parents have reportedly come to the school trying to find their children. Social video from the scene shows panic outside the school as police remove the suspect, his head covered, and officers take him to the car parked on the street. Mass shootings are rare in Serbia and the Balkans, and there have been no school incidents in recent years.
How it happened
The tragic incident happened at the beginning of the school day on Wednesday at Vladislav Ribnikar High School, a well-known school in Vračar, a large part of the Serbian capital. After arriving at the school, the suspect “pulled a gun from his bag” and shot the school’s security guard, Belgrade Police Chief Veselin Milić.
“Then he went to the officer’s office and sat at his desk as if he had done nothing wrong. One girl at her desk, one at the piano. He took their lives.” The suspect then went to the history class, opened fire as he walked through the building, then entered the room, and shot the teacher and students. learn from the door, Milić said CV.
“He left the classroom, went out into the school, dropped the magazine from the weapon, and threw it down the steps.” The suspect called the police himself and waited until he was arrested in the yard, officials said.
Seven girls and one boy were killed, Milić said. One more child and one teacher were hospitalized, according to Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
What has the reaction been?
As soon as the news broke, a group of distraught parents gathered outside the school. “My child is still in shock, full of adrenaline, we can’t calm him down,” the mother of one of the children told CNN N1. Another father mentioned morning stress. “I went to the bank and saw a group of police officers. It was around 8:50. I came to run. I saw the school doctor, I saw the school staff, the teachers, who were in shock,” the husband told N1.
Police and medics stand guard at the Vladislav Ribnikar school in Belgrade, Wednesday, May 3, 2023. A young man opened fire early Wednesday at the school in Belgrade and was injured. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
Eight children died in school shootings in Serbia
“The police came as soon as I saw them. Where is my child? And a man announced that the history teacher was killed. He went back to my room to check my son’s schedule and he was in history class. He took my wife with me and we went back to the road,” he said.
“I saw the security guard lying under the table I went to the door to find the guard. They don’t know what to do. I asked: Where is my child? And no one said anything, “said the husband, the man knew that his daughter escaped unharmed, so they declared three days of mourning, and other European countries sent them the mourning process.
How rare is this shooting?
Serbia, a southern European country of nearly 7 million people, has more than 2,700,000 guns – most of which date back to its controversial history in the 1990s. School Shooting has Rocked Serbia According to a 2018 analysis by Small Research, only 44% of these weapons are registered.
This means that there are 39 weapons per 100 Serbs, according to the data project of the Geneva Graduate Institute. This is the highest level of state gun control in Europe and the fifth highest in the world. According to information, more than 1.5 million Serbian weapons are not registered. Still, these types of shootings are rare, mostly because of the country’s strict gun laws and amnesty for owners who issue or register guns illegally, Reuters reported.
Who is the suspect in the School Shooting that has Rocked Serbia?
Authorities say the teenager is a student at the school. He had two guns in his possession,School Shooting has Rocked Serbia the Serbian interior minister added at the press conference. “Parents have many weapons and keep them locked up. The safe place has a code. Obviously, the child has a number as soon as he manages to hold on to two guns. And three frames have 15 bullets each,” Bratislav Gasic said.
Separately, Milić said the young man had a 9 mm pistol and a small pistol in a bag, along with four Molotov cocktails. The alleged killer was taken from the school in hand with a shirt over his head and dressed in blue, leather pants. The accused parents were arrested on Wednesday. Gasic said he knew the father had previously been to the shooting site with his son.
