Belgrade, May 4, (dpa/GNA) - A young teenage boy went on a shooting spree in his own school in Belgrade on Wednesday morning, opening fire in his classroom with a handgun and killing nine people.
Eight schoolchildren and a security guard were killed at the school, Veselin Milic, director of the Belgrade police, said at a press conference in the Serbian capital on Wednesday afternoon. Six other pupils and a teacher were wounded, including a girl who suffered life-threatening injuries.
Milic said the suspected shooter, a pupil at the school who was born in 2009, had premeditated the attack and even had a list of potential victims. The boy was arrested in the schoolyard.
The government in Belgrade ordered three days of national mourning.
There was initially no information about the exact motives for the shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school in the Vračar district of Belgrade.
But Milic said the boy appears to have been planning his crime for months. Sketches and plans were found on his desk that looked “like something out of a horror film or video game,” Milic said.
The boy went to his school with his father’s gun and four incendiary devices in his pocket, where he first killed a security guard and two students, Milic said.
He went to his school class, where history lessons were in progress. He loaded his gun and opened fire from the doorframe, at the teacher and several students, according to the police chief.
He then ran into the schoolyard and called the police, Milic said.
He was taken to a psychiatric hospital for assessment.
Belgrade police blocked off a wide area around the school, as a large contingent of officers and rescue workers was deployed to the building.
Education Minister Branko Ruzic and Health Minister Danica Grujicic also visited the scene.
Police arrested his parents later in the day.
“This is one of the most difficult days in modern Serbian history,” President Aleksandar Vucic told the press later.
Serbia was united in mourning, he said.
Milic said the two pistols had belonged to the boy’s father. He had also prepared four incendiary devices, though did not use them.
The boy’s father had a valid gun licence, he said. The police suspect the weapons were not stored in line with the regulations, saying the young boy should not have had access to them.
As Vucic said in his comments to the press, the father is an “exemplary doctor,” though he did say he was surprised that the father had taken his son to a shooting range and practised shooting with him.
The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell later expressed his “sadness about the tragic shooting.”
“We want to express our deep condolences to the families and close ones of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded,” Borrell said on Wednesday.
He was addressing the press in Brussels, alongside European Commission Vice-Presidents Vera Jourova and Margaritis Schinas, as well as EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
Borrell called the incident “very sad news.”
GNA