LAST UPDATE | 5 May 2023
SERBIAN PRESIDENT ALEKSANDER Vucic has vowed to launch a large-scale disarmament plan to remove hundreds of thousands of guns from the country, following back-to-back mass shootings in the country this week.
“We will do an almost complete disarming of Serbia,” Vucic said during a live broadcast, hours after the latest shooting killed eight people.
The president said the plan aimed to remove hundreds of thousands of guns from the public that would include a massive review of registered weapons in the country, while also cracking down on illegal arms.
Vucic had said earlier in the week that there were more than 760,000 registered firearms in the country of roughly 6.8 million.
Gun ownership is high in Serbia, where shooting ranges are popular but special permits are required to possess firearms.
The wars in the Balkans during the 1990s amid the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia also saw a large number of weapons circulate in the region.
The latest incident happened less than 48 hours after the worst school shooting in Serbia’s recent history, when a 13-year-old killed nine people, including eight fellow students, at a school in downtown Belgrade on Wednesday.
Serbian police have arrested a man suspected of killing eight people and injuring at least 14 others.
A 21-year-old gunman armed with an automatic weapon opened fire from a moving vehicle before fleeing, near Mladenovac – about 60 kilometres south of the capital Belgrade.
The shooting spree spread across three separate villages in the area, according to the state media outlet.
The shooting prompted a manhunt through the night as police combed the woods near the capital Belgrade.
The back-to-back mass shootings have left the country in a state of shock, with thousands flocking to makeshift memorial sites while others have queued to donate blood.
Roughly 600 police personnel had been deployed to the area, with members of an elite anti-terrorist unit patrolling the highway.
The road leading to the villages of Malo Orasje and Dubona had also been sealed by authorities.
Worried relatives gathered outside the emergency medical centre in Belgrade, where at least eight of the injured were hospitalised, N1 television reported.
Health Minister Danica Grujicic briefly visited the centre.
Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called the shooting a “terrorist act”.
Serbia is set to begin a three-day mourning period, during what is normally a festive time with people flocking outdoors and filling cafes to meet with friends and families.
Mass school shootings are extremely rare in Serbia and president Vucic called Wednesday’s tragedy “one of the most difficult days” in recent history.
In a national address after the school shooting, Vucic proposed stricter gun control measures, including a two-year moratorium on issuing permits for firearms.
The interior ministry has appealed to all firearm owners to keep their guns locked in safes – warning those who do not abide will have their weapons seized.
The Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school remained closed off on Thursday, with police guarding the entrance to the building.
Large crowds of mourners continued to flock to the school to pay their respects, placing flowers, toys and candles along the pavement.
Yesterday evening, people in the Croatian capital Zagreb and the Bosnian Serb administrative capital Banja Luka also lit candles and laid flowers for the victims.
Masses for the victims were held in Belgrade churches while the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, called the shooting a “catastrophe, the likes of which has never happened in our nation and our homeland”.
In the last mass shooting in the Mladenovac area, a villager killed 13 relatives and neighbours in April 2013.
Masses for the victims were held in Belgrade churches while the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, called the shooting a “catastrophe, the likes of which has never happened in our nation and our homeland”.
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