serbia shooting
© Antonio Bronić/ReutersAn ambulance leaves the location of a mass shooting in Malo Orasje, near the town of Mladenovac, Serbia, on Thursday night.
At least eight people have been killed and 13 injured in a shooting near a Serbian town about 60km (37 miles) south of Belgrade, state-run media has reported, just one day after a school shooting also saw eight killed in the capital.

The shooting occurred late on Thursday near Mladenovac when the attacker opened fire with an automatic weapon from a moving vehicle and then fled, state broadcaster RTS television reported. Seven of the injured are in a critical condition.

Police searching for the suspect, believed to be a 21-year-old man, have surrounded an area where he is believed to be hiding, RTS reported. A heavy police presence in the area saw helicopters and drones flying overhead as officers searched amid difficult terrain.

Bratislav Gašić, the minister of internal affairs, called the attack "an act of terrorism".

On Wednesday, a 13-year-old student shot dead eight fellow pupils and a security guard in a Belgrade primary school, an attack that shocked the Balkan country.

Police named Wednesday's shooter as Kosta Kecmanović and said he had been a pupil at the school since 2019. They said he had used two of his father's guns for the shooting and may have been plotting the attack for a month.

The head of Belgrade police, Veselin Milić, said the teenager also had two petrol bombs and "made a list of kids he planned to kill and their classes". Milić identified the dead pupils as seven girls and a boy born between 2009 and 2011.

Kecmanović is too young to face criminal charges and will be placed in a psychiatric institution. His parents have also been arrested.


Serbia to be 'disarmed' after second mass shooting in days, president says


Serbia will be "disarmed", its president, Aleksandar Vučić, has pledged in an address to the nation, after eight people were killed and 14 wounded in a second mass shooting in the Balkans country in as many days.

Vučić described the 48 hours of bloodshed as an "attack on our entire country" as he announced that registered and illegal arms would be seized in what he said would amount to "an almost complete disarming of Serbia".

Mass shootings are rare in Serbia but there is a high level of gun ownership. There are more than 760,000 registered firearms in the country of roughly 6.8 million people and many more are held unofficially. A large number of weapons entered the black market after the wars in the Balkans that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

On Friday morning, a man identified only by his initials, UB, was arrested near the city of Kragujevac, 141km south of the capital Belgrade, over the shootings on Thursday night.

He had been found at the home of a relative after hijacking a taxi. The driver had subsequently tipped off authorities, Vučić said. The alleged gunman was in possession of four grenades, a Kalashnikov and a large amount of ammunition.

Vučić said the gunman had been wearing a T-shirt with neo-Nazi symbols as he fired randomly. The president vowed that the suspect would be convicted and "will never again see the light of the day".

The man had seemingly fled 90km to the city of Kragujevac after opening fire with an automatic weapon from a moving vehicle in multiple locations near the town of Mladenovac late on Thursday.

The shootings had reportedly begun when he opened fire at a schoolyard in the village of Dubona, killing a police officer, with whom he had reportedly argued, and his sister. He had then moved on to the nearby villages of Malo Orašje and Šepšin.

"We heard gunshots in the evening, but I thought it was fireworks, children fooling around," Zvonko Mladenovic, a Dubona resident whose granddaughter had been injured, told AFP. "It did not even occur to me that something like this could happen. She was visiting her grandfather. This was where the kids were hanging out and ... she was shot in the head. First those kids in Belgrade, and now this. This is a disaster."

All those admitted to hospital were born after 2000, the Serbian broadcaster RTS reported. Two people aged 21 and 23 have had surgery and remain in a critical condition.

On Wednesday, a 13-year-old boy shot dead eight fellow pupils and a security guard in a Belgrade primary school, an attack that shocked the Balkan country.

Police named Wednesday's shooter as Kosta Kecmanović and said he had been a pupil at the school since 2019. They said he had used two of his father's guns in the shooting and may have been plotting the attack for a month.

The head of Belgrade police, Veselin Milić, said the teenager also had two petrol bombs and "made a list of kids he planned to kill and their classes". Milić identified the dead pupils as seven girls and a boy born between 2009 and 2011.

Kecmanović is too young to face criminal charges and will be placed in a psychiatric institution. His parents have been arrested.

The high public prosecutor's office said in a statement on Friday that the child's father, identified as Vladimir K, had denied responsibility at an initial hearing.

"The suspect denied committing the crime and presented his defence in detail," the statement said.

The prosecution said it would ask the judge handling preliminary proceedings to remand the man in custody "to prevent influence on witnesses, a repeat of the offence and because of public anxiety".

It said the father was suspected of training his son to handle weapons by taking him to target practice "despite the fact that the child is 13 years old and that such an activity was ... inappropriate for his age".

The prosecutor added that Vladimir K was suspected of failing to adequately secure the two pistols used in the school shooting.

The shooting in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school also left seven people hospitalised - six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remained in a life-threatening condition, and a boy was in a serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said on Thursday morning.

On Thursday, thousands lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys outside the school to commemorate the victims of Wednesday's attack.

Tributes included flowers, teddy bears and footballs. A grey and pink toy elephant was placed by the school fence along with messages of grief, and a girl's ballet shoes hung from the fence.

The most recent mass shooting in Serbia before this week had been in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in the central village of Velika Ivanča.

Serbia's interior ministry has been tasked with drafting changes to the weapon law to tighten up conditions for possession of pistols and handguns.

The measure is aimed at reducing ownership by 90%. An amnesty is also planned within a month, in which anyone who illegally possess such weapons - and explosive devices - will be able to hand them in without consequences. Jail terms for the illegal production, possession, carrying of and trade in weapons will also be increased.