(Mladenovac) A new massacre left eight dead and thirteen injured Thursday evening in Serbia, the day after a massacre in a school without precedent in the country.
A gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon at a group of people from a moving vehicle near the town of Mladenovac, about 60 km south of Belgrade, and then fled, state television RTS reported. . Police are looking for the suspect, she added.
Police blocked the road leading to the villages of Malo Orasje and Dubona, in the area where the shooting occurred, according to an AFP photographer on the spot.
PHOTO ANTONIO BRONIC, REUTERS
Police erected checkpoints in an attempt to intercept the perpetrator.
Many police and ambulances have been dispatched to the scene, and helicopters are flying over the scene.
Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called the incident a “terrorist act”.
Worried relatives gathered outside the Belgrade emergency medical center, where at least eight of the injured were taken to hospital, the N1 television channel reported. Health Minister Danica Grujicic briefly visited the center.
This new shooting occurred the day after the shooting, by a 13-year-old student, of eight children and a guard in a school in Belgrade, a killing that deeply shocked the country.
Seven people – six students and a teacher – were also injured in the attack, and two were still in critical condition on Thursday after undergoing a series of surgeries.
National mourning
The assailant was arrested shortly after the killings in the schoolyard, where he was awaiting the arrival of the police, and was placed in a psychiatric hospital.
PHOTO DENIS LOVROVIC, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Three days of national mourning were declared from Friday.
The shooter’s father, a reputable doctor, owner of the weapon used, was arrested and must be heard Friday by a prosecutor. The mother was also arrested.
Three days of national mourning were declared from Friday. Celebrations and planned events will be largely cancelled. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic lamented “one of the most difficult days in the contemporary history” of Serbia.
Some 765,000 weapons, including more than 232,000 pistols, are legally registered in Serbia, a country of about seven million people.
In April 2013, a villager shot and killed 13 people, including family members and neighbors, near Mladenovac, the same area as Thursday night’s shooting.
The Interior Ministry announced Thursday home checks to check whether weapons were kept in safes, in accordance with the rules. Violators will have their weapons confiscated.
Throughout Thursday, thousands of Belgrade residents laid flowers, toys, messages, and lit candles outside the Vladislav Ribnikar school in the city center where the carnage took place. place.
Masses for the victims were celebrated in the churches of Belgrade. The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, called the shooting “a disaster the likes of which have never happened in our nation and our homeland”.