A teenage gunman killed eight children and one adult in a rampage at an elementary school in Serbia on Wednesday, local authorities said.
The suspect, who was born in 2009 and identified only by his initials, K.K., was a student at the school in the capital, Belgrade, police revealed in a statement. He was taken into custody in the schoolyard.
According to the Associated Press, the massacre began at the Vladislav Ribnikar school at around 8:40 a.m. on Wednesday. The shooter, who the Ministry of Interior said was a seventh-grade student, was initially reported to have fired several rounds from a gun belonging to his father. A later update confirmed eight children and a security guard had been killed, and another six children and a teacher had been wounded.
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The injured kids and teacher have been taken to local hospitals for medical attention. “All police forces are still on the ground and are intensively working to shed light on all the facts and circumstances that led to this tragedy,” the update added. An investigation into the motive for the attack is currently underway.
Footage in local media reportedly showed a commotion outside the school as the suspect was led out of the grounds by officers. The alleged gunman's head was covered as he was placed in a car parked in the street close to the school.
A man who spoke with Serbia’s N1 cable news channel said his daughter was in a history class when the massacre began. “I asked where is my child but no one could tell me anything at first,” Milan Milosevic, who rushed to the school when he heard about the shooting, told N1. “Then she called and we found out she was out.”
He added that his daughter told him the shooter “fired first at the teacher and then the children who ducked under the desks.” “She said he was a quiet boy and a good student,” Milosevic said.
Speaking to Serbian public broadcaster RTS, Tiršova Clinic Director Siniša Dučić said three young victims of the shooting were taken to his facility for treatment. “Two 13-year-old boys and one girl were shot,” Dučić said. “Both boys are neuro-vascularly stable. They are gunshot wounds to the lower extremities. They are being monitored and receiving therapy.” He added that the girl suffered a head injury and was currently in the operating room.
Mass shootings in Serbia and southeastern Europe’s other Balkan states are extremely rare, and those reported at schools are even more so. The last mass shooting in Serbia took place in 2013, when a 60-year-old Balkan war veteran killed 13 people in the village of Velika Ivanča, about 31 miles south of Belgrade.
