A manhunt is underway this Friday, May 5 at dawn in Serbia to find the author of the shots that left eight dead and thirteen injured, in a country already in a state of shock after the killing in a school in Belgrade which killed nine people on Wednesday.
On Thursday evening in three different villages near Mladenovac, about 60 km south of Belgrade, a 21-year-old man opened fire with an automatic weapon from a moving vehicle before fleeing, according to public television RTS.
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Friday at sunrise, many police officers crisscrossed the area, flown over by a helicopter equipped with a searchlight in search of the shooter, according to an AFP photographer on the spot.
According to RTS, around 600 law enforcement officers were deployed, including members of a special anti-terrorist unit. The police blocked the access road to several villages.
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Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic described the incident as“terrorist act”.
Worried relatives gathered outside the Belgrade emergency medical center, where at least eight of the injured were taken to hospital, the N1 television channel reported. Health Minister Danica Grujicic briefly visited the center.
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This new shooting occurred the day after a 13-year-old student shot and killed eight children and a caretaker in a school in Belgrade, a mass killing that deeply shocked the country. Seven people – six students and a teacher – were also injured in the attack, and two were still in critical condition on Thursday after undergoing a series of surgeries.
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The young assailant was arrested shortly after the killing in the schoolyard, where he was awaiting the arrival of the police, and was placed in a psychiatric hospital. The father of the shooter, a reputable doctor, owner of the weapon used, was arrested and must be heard this Friday by a prosecutor. The mother was also arrested.
Three days of national mourning have been declared from this Friday. Planned celebrations and events will be largely cancelled. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lamented “one of the most difficult days in contemporary history” from Serbia.
A large number of firearms have been circulating in the Balkans since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the bloody wars of the 1990s. Some 765,000 weapons, including more than 232,000 pistols, are legally registered in Serbia, country of ‘about seven million people where shooting ranges are popular.
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In April 2013, a villager shot and killed 13 people, including family members and neighbors, near Mladenovac, the same area as Thursday night’s shooting.
A license is required to own firearms in Serbia. The Interior Ministry announced Thursday home checks to check whether weapons were kept in safes, in accordance with the rules in force. Violators will have their weapons confiscated.
Throughout Thursday, thousands of Belgrade residents laid flowers, toys, messages, and lit candles outside the Vladislav Ribnikar school in the city center where the carnage took place. place. Candlelight vigils are also held in Zagreb, Croatia, and Banja Luka, Bosnia. Masses for the victims were celebrated in the churches of Belgrade. The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, called the shooting a “catastrophe such as has never happened in our nation and our homeland”.
