In a first of its kind, a boy executed a mass murder at a school in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, where he shot dead at least eight kids and a security guard on Wednesday morning in a preplanned attack. According to a statement from the interior ministry, six additional students and a teacher were hurt in the shooting and have been brought to the hospital. The incident happened at Vladislav Ribnikar, an elementary school in Vracar, a central Belgrade district.
A 13-year-old pupil from the Vladislav Ribnikar school in the heart of Belgrade, named by police as Kosta Kecmanović, was taken into custody by police in relation to the attack. Seven girls and one boy have been confirmed among the dead, with four further boys and two girls injured. Two boys are in stable condition in hospital, while a girl is in critical condition with a head injury.
According to the police, the seventh-grader student confessed to the crime after he was arrested. He carried two guns and two petrol bombs, and planned the attack carefully, said Belgrade police chief Veselin Milic. The killer’s father, who legally owns the guns used in the crime, also has been arrested. According to the police, the father of the boy will be charged over the shooting and not his son, as the boy is below the age of criminal responsibility, which is 14.
Soon after 08:40 local time (06:40 GMT), police in helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area around the school, which is situated in the neighbourhood of Vracar in the city centre.
At a news conference in Belgrade, officials informed the media that the assailant had personally called the police after the deadly assault. The perpetrator had used his father’s guns and an inquiry into the reasons for the gruesome incident is ongoing.
According to police, the shooter had a priority list of the students he wanted to kill, along with the classes he wanted to enter first, and had planned the attack a month in advance.
Most of the victims were born in 2009 and were either 13 or 14, similar to the age of the shooter. Branko Ruzic, the education minister, has declared a three-day national mourning period beginning on Friday, while no school will take place for the rest of Wednesday.
“It is unthinkable when you see the scene of the place, what the children have been through, and the teachers, the teachers who have tried to protect the children,” he told a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
“Sadly there is no possible way for them to come back. This is the worst thing I have seen in my whole career as a doctor and as a human being,” Health Minister Danica Grujičić stated with teary eyes.
“There’s been an operation and all that can be done (has been) but they’re still fighting for her life,” while referring to the children who were injured in the attack. The minister reported that the teacher who was hurt was undergoing surgery and her life was at risk.
Milan Nedeljkovic, mayor of the central Vracar district where the school is located, said doctors were fighting to save the teacher’s life.
Hours after the shooting on Wednesday morning, parents were in distress on the streets near the school. Some of them were still uncertain as to whether their children are still alive, and they were upset that the police haven’t provided them with more details.
“Please tell us anything,” some pleaded with the officers on the ground. Others contacted every Belgrade hospital and doctor they knew to inquire if their child was receiving care there.
“She has long hair and black jeans,” one mother was heard repeating over her phone. Parents who haven’t heard from their kids have been urged by the authorities to visit a nearby police station for more details.
Evgenija, 14, said she knew the shooter. “He was somehow silent and appeared nice and had good grades. Did not know much about him, he was not that open to everyone. I would never expect that this could happen.”
She unveiled, “I heard noises and I thought some boys, some kids were throwing firecrackers, just for the fun of it, but then I heard that even closer and then I saw the security guard falling to the ground,” she revealed adding that she then ran away.”
One of the students’ fathers, Milan Milosevic, stated that his daughter was in the class where the gun was fired and that she was able to flee. “(The boy) first shot the teacher and then he started shooting randomly. I saw the security guard lying under the table. I saw two girls with blood on their shirts. They say he (the shooter) was quiet and a good pupil. He recently joined their class.” he informed.
Serbia has fairly strong gun laws and has offered various amnesties to encourage owners to turn in or register illegal firearms, therefore mass shootings there are quite uncommon. However, as a result of wars and unrest in the 1990s, the western Balkans are overrun with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons.
Ljubisa Bogdanovic massacred 14 people in the central village of Velika Ivanca in 2013 in the country’s bloodiest shooting to date. On July 27, 2007, Nikola Radosavljevic killed nine people and injured five more in the village of Jabukovac in the east.
In 2015, Rade Sefer murdered six guests at his son’s wedding in the northern town of Senta, and a year later, Sinisa Zlatic used an assault weapon to slaughter five people in a cafe in the northern town of Zitiste.
17-year-old Luka, who attends a nearby local high school, claimed the catastrophe was long in coming. “This is a mistake that the entire Serbian society is making for over a decade. This popularization of violent crime through public and media, through art, through everything.”
