Serbia School Shooting Leaves 8 Children Dead; 13-Year-Old Boy, Father Arrested

A student in Serbia shot and killed eight fellow students and a security guard
The Serbia school shooting suspect used his father's firearm
The incident prompted three days of national mourning

On Wednesday, a teenager opened fire at a school in Belgrade, Serbia's capital, killing eight students and a school security officer, according to police. Six additional children and a teacher have been hospitalized with injuries.

"Nothing like this has ever been documented in the annals of Belgrade institutions," said Milan Nedeljkovic, the mayor of the Vracar district of the city.

Serbia School Shooter Has List of Targets

According to police, the suspect was a seventh-grade pupil at the school, and the child used a firearm belonging to his father. Horrified parents arrived at the school seeking their children.

Local media footage from the scene depicted commotion outside the school as police led the suspect to a stationary vehicle with his head covered. In recent years, no reports of mass massacres in schools in Serbia or the broader Balkan region have been reported.

The catastrophe has prompted three days of national mourning in Serbia. At approximately 8:40 a.m. local time, authorities received a notification about the gunfire at Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School.

Police arrested the suspect, a 2009-born seventh-grader, on suspicion of using his father's gun to fire at school pupils and staff. Minutes after the violence was reported, the suspect, identified only by his initials, K.K., contacted police from the school, according to a police update. They also reported that he had written a list of the children he intended to murder, indicating that he had planned his actions well.

According to RTS, the prosecutor's office in Belgrade stated that the perpetrator is too immature to be held criminally accountable because he is only 13. The news source added that prosecutors ordered the student's father to be detained on suspicion of offenses against public safety, citing his status as a minor.

The deceased students include seven females and one male, according to Belgrade Police Chief Veselin Mili and N1 TV. Mili also exhibited a handwritten list of students the suspect intended to target and a diagram of the school's layout. He stated that the attack was likely plotted at least one month in advance.

The first contact with police from the school was made by the school's assistant principal, who reported the violence; however, according to Mili, a second call was made by the suspect himself, who told police he had just shot multiple people. By then, the suspect had gone to the schoolyard to await the officers' arrival.

The commotion outside the primary school in central Belgrade was captured on video as the suspect was led to a vehicle by police with his head covered. After the school attack, police detained the suspect's father, according to Interior Minister Bratislav Gai.

According to the Danas news site, officers discovered that the suspect was carrying two pistols registered to his father. When police visited the suspect's residence, they discovered a safe the suspect's father claimed was used to store the weapons.

However, his son purportedly knew the combination, and the two had reportedly visited a firing range together. Citizens and permanent inhabitants must satisfy several requirements to own a firearm in Serbia. In addition to registering their firearm, they must complete a firearms training and obtain a medical fitness certificate. They must also store firearms safely and provide valid justifications for gun ownership.

Minister of Education Branko Rui announced that the government of Serbia had proclaimed three days of national mourning due to the tragedy in Belgrade. During this time, he said, families could say their final goodbyes in tranquility, and he implored Serbians to consider how to prevent future tragedies.

The designation requires broadcasters to modify their programming in various ways, including excluding comedies and other light entertainment. According to the Serbian media regulator REM, broadcasters are exhorted to play music in a minor key.

The Vladislav Ribnikar school is located in the Vraar district, known for its museums, chapels, and other historic structures, such as the national library of Serbia. In Serbia, mass murders are uncommon, but authorities have repeatedly warned the public about the many weapons left in the country after the 1990s conflict.

Serbia Mass Shooting

Serbia ranks among the top five nations worldwide regarding the number of civilian firearms per capita. While nearly 1.2 million firearms are registered in Serbia, more than 1.5 million are not.

There have been multiple mass shootings in the country, and it is known that Serbians still possess armaments from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. A veteran of the Balkan Wars murdered 13 persons in a village near Belgrade in 2013, as per NY Times.

In 2007, a man fatally shot nine persons in the eastern Serbian village of Jabukovac. With its high gun ownership rate, the United States remains an aberration regarding gun violence.

According to a 2016 study by Adam Lankford, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Alabama, Americans accounted for 31 percent of the perpetrators of mass shootings worldwide from 1966 to 2012. Only Yemen, among countries with more than 10 million inhabitants, had a higher rate of mass shootings per capita, according to the study.

Supporters of gun rights have disputed Lankford's findings. However, he has stated that the United States accounts for more than six times its global proportion of cases involving lone gunmen perpetrating random acts of violence relative to its population size.