Eight Children, Security Guard Killed in Belgrade After 14-Year-Old Opens Fire in School: Report
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A security guard and several kids have been killed and at least five pupils injured after a 14-year-old boy opened fire at a school in Belgrade, a report said.
There are conflicting reports about how many people were hurt at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School. According to the Vecernje novosti newspaper, a security guard and eight children have been killed.
However the CNN affiliate N1 reported that at least five children including a teacher and a security guard were among the victims.
A seventh-grade student – typically aged 12 or 13 – was arrested.
The Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement on Facebook that it was informed at 8.40 a.m. local time (2.40 a.m. ET) that a school shooting had occurred at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Vračar, an upscale area of the Serbian capital.
“All available police patrols were dispatched to the scene, where they immediately went onto the school grounds and apprehended a minor, a seventh-grader who is suspected to have fired several shots from his father’s gun at students and the school security guard.”
“The wounded are being administered medical care, while the police work to establish the facts and circumstances that led to this incident,” the ministry statement says.
Casualties are being treated and an investigation into the motives behind the shooting is under way, police said in a statement, without elaborating.
“The police sent all available patrols immediately to the spot and arrested a suspected minor - a seventh grade student who is suspected of firing several shots from his father's gun in the direction of students and school security,” the country's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Vračar is a wealthy area of the city and a number of embassies are based there.
Police sealed off the blocks surrounding the school. Primary schools in Serbia have eight grades.
Mass shootings in the country are extremely rare. Experts, however, have repeatedly warned of the number of weapons left over in the country after the wars of the 1990s.
The western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following the unrest there.
Serbian authorities have offered several amnesties for owners to hand in or register illegal guns.
