8 Dead in Shooting in Serbia, Day After School
Massacre That Killed 9
A suspect was in custody after an overnight manhunt in
the latest shooting, which also injured at least 14, in an attack about 30
miles outside of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade.
John Yoon Victoria
Kim Matej Leskovsek
By John
Yoon, Victoria Kim and Matej Leskovsek
Published
May 4, 2023
Updated May
5, 2023, 2:54 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/world/europe/serbia-shooting.html
Serbian
police arrested a suspect early Friday after an hourslong overnight manhunt for
the gunman who killed eight people and injured at least 14 others near
Belgrade, according to Serbia’s Interior Ministry.
The
shooting late Thursday was the nation’s second mass shooting in as many days
and rattled a country still reeling from an attack at a school that killed
eight students.
The arrest
was made near the city of Kragujevac, about 40 miles south of where the
shootings began, according to the ministry.
Hundreds of
police officers had gone door to door in the search for a 21-year-old male
suspect, according to RTS, Serbia’s public broadcaster. They deployed
helicopters and surrounded the area where they believed he was hiding, the
report said.
The gunman,
who was in a moving vehicle, used an automatic weapon and fled the scene,
according to RTS, which said the attack took place around Mladenovac, a
municipality in the southern part of the capital, Belgrade.
The
shooting took place at 11 p.m. local time, Serbia’s Interior Ministry told CNN.
It is not clear how long it lasted.
The gunman
first opened fire in a schoolyard in the village of Dubona, killing a police
officer and his sister, in addition to others there, RTS reported. He then
moved on to the neighboring villages of Mali Orasje and Sepsin, the broadcaster
said.
Serbia’s
interior minister, Bratislav Gasic, called the shooting “a terrorist act,” RTS
reported.
The
villages where the attack took place are sparsely populated suburban areas on
the southeastern edge of the city of Belgrade, near the slopes of Mount Kosmaj.
After initially searching in darkness with thermal imaging cameras, the police
began a physical search as dawn broke, going door to door, RTS reported.
The Serbian
authorities offered no details about a motive for the shooting, according to
N1, a Serbian cable news channel.
After the
shooting on Wednesday, the Serbian government began considering ways to tighten
its strict gun regulations. President Aleksandar Vucic proposed a two-year
moratorium on new gun licenses other than for hunting and legislation that
would bar minors and certain other people from owning firearms, the broadcaster
said.
The
country’s Interior Ministry urged gun owners to ensure their weapons are locked
away, unloaded and separated from ammunition. The ministry said it would go
through the registry of gun owners to check that arms were properly stored and
seize weapons or take other actions against owners if they were not.
Serbia has
historically had a high level of gun ownership compared with other countries —
because of its recent history of armed conflict and a cultural tradition of
owning guns — but has not had high levels of gun violence, according to an
October 2022 report by the Flemish Peace Institute, an independent research
group.
From 2015
through 2019, 125 people were killed in firearm-related homicides in Serbia, a
country of about seven million people, according to the report. According to
the 2018 Small Arms Survey, Serbia ranks third in the world, after the United
States and Yemen in civilian firearm ownership, with an estimated 39 firearms
per 100 people.
Serbia has
implemented stringent regulations on firearms since guns became widely
available as a result of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Gun owners must have no
history of imprisonment and have no criminal record in the past four years, be
trained in handling firearms, undergo routine medical examinations and have a
safe storage space.
Serbia has
had several mass shootings in recent years. In 2016, a man killed five people
at a cafe in the country’s north. In 2015, a man killed four people after his
son’s wedding, including his wife, his new daughter-in-law and her parents. In
2013, a 60-year-old veteran of the Balkan wars killed 13 people, including
relatives and neighbors, in the village of Velika Ivanca near Belgrade. And in
July 2007, a 38-year-old man killed nine people who had been passing by on a
street in the village of Jabukovac in eastern Serbia.
This is a
developing story. It will be updated.
John Yoon
reports from the Seoul newsroom of The Times. He previously reported for the
coronavirus tracking team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in
2021. He joined The Times in 2020. @johnjyoon
Victoria
Kim is a correspondent based in Seoul, focused on international breaking news
coverage. @vicjkim
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