• Boy shoots dead nine people in Belgrade classroom

    International
    Boy shoots dead nine people in Belgrade classroom
    The area around the school was cordoned off by officers wearing helmets and protective vests.

    Digital Desk: In a Belgrade classroom on Wednesday morning, a 14-year-old boy killed his teacher before turning the gun on other students and security officers and killing eight pupils and a guard, according to the interior ministry of Serbia.

    According to Milan Milosevic, the father of a student at the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school, his daughter was in the class where the gun was fired. "She managed to escape. According to Milosevic, "(The boy) shot the teacher first before he began firing randomly."

    The teacher's life was being fought for by physicians, according to Milan Nedeljkovic, mayor of the school's location in central Vracar.

    According to a statement from the interior ministry, six children were hospitalised along with the teacher, and eight children and a security guard were killed.

    According to the police, a seventh-grader was taken into custody.

    "I observed the security guard curled up beneath the table. Two girls that I saw had blood on their clothing. He (the shooter) was reportedly quiet and a decent student. He just started attending their class," added Milosevic, who had rushed to the school right after the incident.

    The area around the school was cordoned off by officers wearing helmets and protective vests.

    "I saw kids screaming as they ran out of the school. Parents came, they were in panic. Later, I heard three shots," a girl at a nearby high school for Vladislav Ribnikar told state television RTS.

    According to a statement from the police, those injured are being treated while the into the motives behindare being investigated.

    Serbia has highly severe gun restrictions, therefore mass shootings are quite uncommon there. However, thousands of illegal weapons are proliferating in the western Balkans due to wars and unrest in the 1990s.

    For owners to turn in or register illegal guns, Serbian authorities have offered several amnesties.