BOY14 OPENS FIRE AT SERBIAN SCHOOL, KILLING EIGHT CHILDREN AND A TEACHER

Wed 03 May 2023:

On Wednesday morning in Belgrade, a 14-year-old boy shot his teacher in the head before turning the gun on other students and security personnel, killing eight children and a guard, Anadolu Agency reported., quoting Serbia’s interior ministry.

Milan Milosevic, the father of one of the pupils at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school, said his daughter was in the class where the gun was fired.

“She managed to escape. (The boy) …first shot the teacher and then he started shooting randomly,” 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 hospitalised along with the teacher.

Police said a seventh-grade student had been arrested.

“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,” added Milosevic, who had rushed to the school after the shooting.

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.

According to a statement from the police, the injured are being treated, and an investigation into the shooting’s causes is ongoing.

In Serbia, where there are strict gun control regulations, mass shootings 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.

The Serbian government has offered multiple amnesties to encourage gun owners to turn in or register illegal weapons.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

______________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent