A gunman apparently shooting at random killed eight people and wounded 14 in three Serbian villages, authorities said, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect on Friday after an all-night manhunt. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called on Thursday’s shooting an attack on the whole nation.
It came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital. The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, Wednesday’s shooting was the first at a school 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. Late Thursday, an attacker shot at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital.
Vucic said the assailant targeted people “wherever they were.”
“I heard some tak-tak-tak sounds,” recalled Milan Prokic, a resident of Dubona, near Mladenovac. Prokic said he first thought people were shooting to celebrate a birth, as is tradition in Serbia.
“But it wasn’t that. Shame, great shame,” Prokic added.
Police said a suspect, identified by the initials UB, was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Belgrade.Authorities released a photo of the suspect in a police car, showing a young man in a blue T-shirt with an inscription and a map of part of Europe on it.
Vucic vowed to the nation in an address that the suspect “will never again see the light of the day.” He referred to the attack as an act of terror, as is typical and announced a series of “anti-terrorist” measures, including the hiring of 1,200 policemen and putting a police officer on guard each day at schools.
Before the second shooting, Serbia spent much of Thursday reeling. Students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to slain peers.Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes.
The same day, authorities moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them away from children. The government ordered a two-year moratorium on short-barrel guns and tougher sentences for people who enable minors to get ahold of guns.
Under current law, a registered gun owner in Serbia must be over 18, healthy, and have no criminal record. Weapons must be kept locked and separately from ammunition.
Wednesday’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar school also left seven people hospitalized, six children and a teacher. One 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.
Authorities have identified the shooter as Kosta Kecmanovic and said he is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental hospital, and his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security.
