A 14-year-old student has been arrested on suspicion of shooting dead eight students and a security guard at a school in Belgrade. According to the Interior Ministry, the minor opened fire at 8.40 a.m. on Wednesday at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school. A 53-year-old teacher teaching a history class was seriously injured. Milan Nedeljkovic, head of the central district of Vracar, where the school is located, explained that the doctors were fighting for his life. Police led the suspect in the murder of his companions handcuffed and with his head covered by a piece of clothing. While the ambulances and the children’s parents arrived at the school, officers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area around the school.
The class was on the ground floor of the school, local newspaper Danas reported. This made it easier for several students to escape through the windows.
Milan Milosevic, the father of a student at the school, told local media that his daughter was in the class where the shooting started and she managed to escape. “[El menor] First he shot the teacher and then he started shooting randomly,” he said. As the Ministry of the Interior announced, there are six students in the hospital in addition to the teacher.
A mother hugged her daughter Wednesday after the shooting at Vladislav Ribnikar School in Belgrade. OLIVER BUNIC (AFP)
Milosevic, who came to the school after the shooting, told the broadcaster: “I saw the guard lying under the table. I saw two girls with blood on their shirts.” A young woman, who is studying at a secondary school near the school, told state television RTS, “I saw children running out of school screaming. The parents came, they were scared. Then I heard three shots.”
The suspect in the massacre had been planning the attack for some time and even had a list of the people he wanted to kill, according to a statement by the Serbian police released by the Efe Agency. He also likes to hunt and learned how to shoot while doing this, according to Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic.
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The minister pointed out that the two pistols used by the alleged attacker were licensed and believed to have belonged to the minor’s father, who was also arrested. ” explained the Minister. Minister.
The Interior Ministry chief added that the teenager managed to get hold of the two guns and three chargers, each containing fifteen bullets, according to radio station N1. The authorities have specified that the minor prepared the attack for a long time. The same station adds that he himself notified the police and that he made a list of his victims before the attack.
Mass shootings are comparatively rare in Serbia, which has very strict gun ownership laws. But the Western Balkans have been awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following the wars and unrest of the 1990s. Serbian authorities have granted several amnesties to the owners to hand them over or search them.
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