Police arrested a teenage male after a shooting in a school classroom in Belgrade, Serbia, on Wednesday morning which killed at least nine, with the victims mainly children.
The gunman, said to be a teenage boy who is a pupil at the school and who allegedly used a gun taken from his father, is said to have entered a classroom and shot a teacher, before turning the gun on others. Among the nine confirmed dead are a security guard and eight children. The injured include the teacher and six more children.
The teenage suspect has been identified in Serbian media by his initials ‘K.K.’, and was described by a parent of a child at the school quoted by the Associated Press that he had recently joined the class and was “a quiet boy and a good student.”
Repeating the version of events given by his daughter, who is at the school, the parent said: “He (the shooter) fired first at the teacher and then the children who ducked under the desks”.
The suspect was taken from the school to a waiting police car with a black cloth draped over his head by detectives.
As reported by the BBC, following the Balkans wars of the 1990s countries like Serbia have very high levels of gun ownership, both legal and illegal, but today shootings are rare and the murder rate is comparable to the European average, or the United Kingdom.
BELGRADE, SERBIA – MAY 03: Police take security measures around the elementary school after a 7th grade student opened fire at the school, in Belgrade, Serbia on May 03, 2023. It is reported that a security guard was dead and five students were wounded. (Photo by Milos Miskov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT – A parent escorts her child following a shooting at a school in the capital Belgrade on May 3, 2023. – Serbian police arrested a student following a shooting at an elementary school in the capital Belgrade on May 3, 2023, the interior ministry said. The shooting occurred at 8:40 am local time (06:40 GMT) at an elementary school in Belgrade’s downtown Vracar district. (Photo by Oliver Bunic / AFP) (Photo by OLIVER BUNIC/AFP via Getty Images)
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