Sun | May 19, 2024

Suspect arrested in Serbia’s second mass shooting in two days

Published:Friday | May 5, 2023 | 8:24 AM
Forensic police inspects the scene around a car in the village of Dubona, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, May 5, 2023. A shooter killed multiple people and wounded more in a drive-by attack late Thursday in Serbia's second such mass killing in two days, state television reported. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Police on Friday arrested a suspect who allegedly randomly shot and killed eight people and wounded 14 in a series of villages in Serbia on Thursday, authorities said.

The shootings shook the nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. 

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called Thursday's shootings an attack on the whole nation and said the person arrested wore a T-shirt with a pro-Nazi slogan on it but did not specify a motive.

The slayings came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father's guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital.

The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s, Wednesday's shooting was the first at a school in the country's modern history.

Police say a 13-year-old who opened fire at his school drew sketches of classrooms and made a list of people he intended to target. He killed eight fellow students and a school guard before being arrested Wednesday.

The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.

Public figures, politicians and experts appeared successively on TV Friday, desperately seeking to explain the tragedies. The first made the country numb with grief, while the second heightened feelings of insecurity and anxiety over what might come next.

As a nationwide period of mourning began, TV screens were filled with people wearing black and music was banned from the airwaves as well as in cafes and restaurants.

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