A 14-year-old boy has shot his teacher in a Belgrade classroom before opening fire on other students and security guards, killing eight pupils and a security guard, Serbia’s interior ministry says.
Using his father’s handgun, the boy fired first on Wednesday morning at the security guard and three girls in the hallway of the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school then entered a history class and shot the teacher and classmates, police said.
The teacher and six pupils were taken to hospital, some with life-threatening injuries.
Police said a grade 7 student had been arrested in the schoolyard after calling the police and confessing to the shooting. An investigation into his motives was under way.
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Pre-planned attack
Veselin Milic, head of Belgrade police, said the attacker had two guns and two petrol bombs, and had pre-planned everything.
“He even had … names of children he wanted to kill and their classes,” he told a press conference.
Officers in helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area around the school. Bodies were carried out and put into funeral vehicles.
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 told Reuters.
“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 said, adding she then ran away.
Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said the father of the shooter had also been arrested.
Milan Milosevic, the father of one of the pupils at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school, said his daughter was in the class where the gun was fired on Wednesday morning.
“She managed to escape. (The boy) … first shot the teacher and then he started shooting randomly,” Mr Milosevic told broadcaster N1.
Milan Nedeljkovic, mayor of the central Vracar district where the school is located, said doctors were fighting to save the teacher’s life.
The interior ministry statement said eight children and a security guard had been killed and six children had been taken to hospital for treatment along with the teacher.
“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,” said Mr Milosevic, who had rushed to the school after the shooting.
Sinisa Ducic, who is acting director of a paediatric clinic in Belgrade treating three of the children, said one girl, was undergoing surgery on her head.
“She has a serious injury,” Dr Ducic told reporters.
Education Minister Branko Ruzic declared three days of national mourning starting on Friday.
Officers in helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area around the school.
“I saw kids running out from the school, screaming. Parents came, they were in panic. Later I heard three shots,” a girl who attends a high school adjacent to Vladislav Ribnikar told state TV RTS.
Casualties are being treated and an investigation into the motives behind shooting is under way, police said in a statement.
Mass shootings are comparatively rare in Serbia, which has very strict gun laws.
But the western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following wars and unrest in the 1990s.
Serbian authorities have issued several amnesties for owners to hand in or register illegal guns.
-Reuters
