Officers in helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area. image source: EPA
A tragic shooting at a school in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has claimed the lives of a security guard and at least eight students.
Six pupils and a teacher were hurt during the incident at the Vladislav Ribnikar school in central Belgrade on Wednesday morning, according to a statement from the interior ministry.
A 14-year-old kid has been detained by authorities for his alleged involvement in the shooting, which reportedly involved his father’s gun.
The reasons behind the incident are currently being looked into.
Soon after 8:40 am local time (7:40 am GMT), police officers in bulletproof vests and helmets secured the area around the school in the Vracar neighborhood.
The police quickly sent all available patrols to the scene, according to a statement from the interior ministry, and detained a suspected child, a seventh-grade student, who is accused of firing multiple rounds from his father’s rifle toward pupils and school security.
In a later message, the ministry added that all police agencies were still actively looking into the incident to learn all the details and circumstances surrounding it.
Pictures of the accused being escorted away from the crime scene by law enforcement were shown in local media. His wrists were bound and a coat covered his head.
Two 13-year-old boys and a girl, three of the shot students, have been sent to a local hospital in Tirsova for medical care.
The two boys who were wounded in the lower extremities are receiving treatment, according to Dr. Sinisa Ducic, the clinic’s director, who also told the state broadcaster RTS that they are in a stable condition.
He said they were being watched and getting the right kind of counseling.
The girl who was shot, however, also revealed that she was awaiting surgery for a major head injury.
The shooter began by aiming for the teacher before shooting other pupils at random, according to Milan Milosevic, whose daughter was in the room when the shooting occurred.
“He first shot the teacher, and then he started shooting randomly,” Milosevic told N1 broadcaster.
Two girls with blood on their clothing and the security guard laying behind a table were among the things a student who witnessed the gunshot described to Serbian official TV RTS.
The gunman was a recent addition to the class, according to the witness, and was generally quiet and well-behaved.
The same teenager claimed to have witnessed other pupils fleeing the building in a panic as parents flocked to the area. Later thereafter, the student heard three gunshots.
The school’s location in the Vracar district, where Milan Nedeljkovic serves as mayor, said the teacher who was shot was undergoing treatment and was in a critical condition.
Because of Serbia’s tight firearms prohibitions, mass shootings are not usual. Nevertheless, one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe can be found in this nation.
The Western Balkans region is overrun with illegal firearms, with estimates of their number in the hundreds of thousands, as a result of the wars and unrest of the 1990s.
According to reports from 2019, Serbia has 39.1 weapons per 100 people, which was the third-highest rate in the world, behind Montenegro and the United States.