BELGRADE: State television reported that a drive-by shooting late Thursday night in a town close to Belgrade left at least eight people dead and 13 wounded, making it the second such massacre in Serbia in two days.
The aggressor utilized a programmed weapon to take shots haphazardly at individuals close to the town of Mladenovac, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, the RTS report said early Friday. According to the report, police were searching for the 21-year-old suspect who eluded them after the attack.
According to the report, Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic referred to the shooting as "a terrorist act."
In addition, ambulances and special police and helicopter units have been dispatched to the area.
There were no additional details available right away, and the police had not made any statements.
A 13-year-old boy went on a school shooting spree on Wednesday in Belgrade, killing eight of his classmates and a school guard with the help of his father's guns. The Balkan nation, accustomed to such mass killings, was shocked by the bloodshed.
On Thursday, dozens of Serbian students, many of whom wore black and carried flowers, silently remembered their deceased classmates.
As they came in from all over the city, the students packed the streets around the school in the middle of Belgrade. Prior, thousands had arranged to lay blossoms, light candles and leave toys to remember the eight youngsters and a school watch who were killed on Wednesday morning.
Outside the school, people stood in front of a lot of flowers, small teddy bears, and soccer balls and wept and hugged. Along with messages of sorrow, a girl's ballet shoes and a gray and pink toy elephant were hung from the school fence.
The Balkan nation is having a hard time accepting what has occurred. However flooded with weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, mass shootings actually have been very uncommon — and this is the main school shooting in Serbia's advanced history.
The misfortune likewise started a discussion about the general condition of the country following many years of emergencies and clashes whose repercussions have made a condition of super durable weakness and insecurity, alongside profound political divisions.
Police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them safe, away from children, as authorities took action on Thursday to tighten gun control.
Police have said that the youngster utilized his dad's weapons to complete the assault. According to police on Wednesday, he had planned it for a month, sketched classrooms, and made lists of the children he wanted to kill.
According to police on Wednesday, the boy, who apparently had the code to his father's safe and had been to shooting ranges with him, stole two guns and the bullets from the safe where they were kept.
In a statement that also announced future tighter controls on gun owners, the police said, "The Ministry of Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns with care, locked up in safes or closets so they are out of reach of others, especially children."
Seven people, including six children and a teacher, were hospitalized following the shooting on Wednesday morning at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school. On Thursday morning, doctors announced that a boy with spinal injuries is in serious condition and a girl with a head injury remains in a life-threatening condition.
To assist with peopling manage the misfortune, specialists reported they were setting up a helpline. A call for blood donations for the wounded victims was answered by hundreds. On Friday morning, a three-day mourning period will begin.
The teachers' unions in Serbia announced protests and strikes to warn of a school system crisis and demand changes. Specialists disregarded liability, for certain authorities accusing Western impact as opposed to a profound social emergency in the country.
The shooter, identified by the police as Kosta Kecmanovic, has not provided any justification for his actions.
Kecmanovic killed the guard and three students in the hallway before entering his school. He then, at that point, went to the set of experiences homeroom where he shot the instructor prior to turning his weapon on the understudies.
Even though a school official had already alerted them, Kecmanovic unloaded the gun in the school yard and called the police himself. According to police, Kecmanovic told duty officers when he called that he was a "psychopath who needs to calm down."
Seven girls, a boy, and the school security guard were killed. According to the French foreign ministry, one of the girls held French citizenship.
Specialists have said that Kecmanovic is too youthful to ever be charged and attempted. His father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public safety due to his son obtaining the guns, and he has been committed to a mental health facility.
"I believe we are all to blame. During the vigil held on Wednesday evening near the school, Belgrade resident Zoran Sefik stated, "I think each of us has some responsibility, that we allowed some things we should not have allowed to happen."
Another Belgrade resident, Jovan Lazovic, said he wasn't surprised: Considering what was going on in the world and here, something like this could happen in a matter of days, he said.
In Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans, gun culture is widespread: The district is among the top in Europe in the quantity of firearms per capita. Firearms are frequently terminated out of sight at festivities and the faction of the hero is important for public character. Despite this, the most recent mass shooting occurred in a Serbian village in the center in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people.
Specialists have more than once cautioned of the peril presented by the quantity of weapons in a profoundly partitioned country like Serbia, where sentenced war lawbreakers are celebrated and brutality against minority bunches frequently slips through the cracks. They also point out that such outbursts could be sparked by decades of conflict-related instability and ongoing economic hardship.
Zarko Trebjesanin, a psychologist, stated to N1 television, "We have had too much violence for too long." Children imitate adults. Positive models must be eliminated, and a new set of values must be developed."