Today, Serbia is tied with Montenegro as having the highest level of gun ownership in Europe as well as the fifth-highest level in the world. This included the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when Serbian forces committed genocide against more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, and the Kosovo War, when Serbians fought Kosovar Albanian nationalists seeking independence. Serbia faced years of unrest following the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992, when thousands of everyday Serbians formed armed militias to support Serbian ethnic nationalism. The Eastern European country has a complicated history with gun ownership. “These monsters will never see the light of the day.” Despite the Serbian presidency being a relatively ceremonial position, Vucic maintains substantial power through his role as head of the country’s ruling party, the Serbian Progressive Party. Vucic also pledged to hire 1,200 new police officers in the next six months to strengthen school security. These include enacting stricter conditions for purchasing weapons, doubling fines for breaking the law, and implementing a national gun buyback program for those who cannot meet the new terms. “This is an attack on all our country, and every citizen feels it.” The president declared both events to be acts of domestic terrorism and promised to “ disarm” the country by establishing tougher gun control laws. “We are united in pain and sorrow,” Vucic said at a press conference on Friday morning. The seventh grader, who called the police himself after the shooting and waited in the schoolyard to be arrested, was armed with pistols and Molotov cocktails when he was apprehended. Local authorities said they found detailed plans that indicated the assault had been planned months ago. Just 24 hours earlier, a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill at least eight students and a security officer as well as injure seven people at a school in Belgrade. The shooter’s motive remains unknown, though Vucic said the suspect was wearing a T-shirt with a pro-Nazi slogan. Officials also confiscated four hand grenades and other illicit weapons and ammunition at his home. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic deployed more than 600 Serbian special forces to search for the suspect, who was arrested early Friday morning. Eight people were killed and 14 others injured. Late Thursday night local time, a 21-year-old man opened fire in the village of Dubona, roughly 37 miles south of the capital, Belgrade, before targeting at least one other nearby village, officials said. No other details were immediately available, and police had not issued any statements.Ī Reuters witness saw heavily armed police establishing a checkpoint and searching incoming traffic, near the village of Dubona, not far from Mladenovac.Serbia is in a state of mourning after its second mass shooting in two days. Serbian interior minister Bratislav Gasic described the latest shooting as a "terrorist act", Serbian news portal Telegraf reported, without providing further detail.Īccording to local media, after a late-night argument in a schoolyard near Mladenovac, the suspect returned with an assault rifle, opened fire and continued to shoot at people at random from a moving car. Mr Vucic said the gunman in the latest attack targeted people at random, saying he shot "wherever they were" and called it an attack on the whole country. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic subsequently proposed an array of tough measures to improve gun control and bolster security in schools in the Balkan country after the two deadly mass shootings this week. The shooting comes less than 48 hours after a 13-year-old boy shot dead nine people at a school in Belgrade before turning himself in. Image: Pic: Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairsįurther work by the police and prosecutor's office continues.
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