Serbia’s president vows tougher gun control after 2 mass shootings
- Serbia reeling from second mass shooting in two days that has claimed 17 lives
- President uses national address to announce ‘practical disarmament’ of Serbia
Eight people were killed and a suspect arrested after Serbia’s second mass shooting in just two days, in what President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday called a “terrorist attack” as he announced tough new gun control measures.
Serbs had just begun three days of mourning on Friday for those victims as news broke of the second incident, which authorities said occurred late on Thursday near the town of Mladenovac, 42km (26 miles) south of Belgrade.
State broadcaster RTS said the suspect, a young man, had been involved in an altercation in a schoolyard. He left and then returned with an assault rifle and a handgun, opened fire and continued to shoot at people at random from a moving car.
“The suspect U.B., born in 2002, has been apprehended in the vicinity of the city of Kragujevac, he is suspected of killing eight people and wounding 14 overnight,” Serbia’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. An investigation was ongoing.
Kragujevac is roughly 90km from the scene of the attacks.