Police apprehend suspect in Serbia's 2nd mass shooting

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian police said early on Friday they had arrested a suspect in a series of shootings that killed at least eight people and wounded 14, the nation's second such mass shooting in two days.

In a statement, police said the man was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometers south of the capital Belgrade.

The attacker randomly shot at people near Mladenovac town, some 50 km south of the capital, according to local media.

"I heard some 'tak-tak-tak' sounds," recalled Milan Prokic, a resident of Dubona, a village near Mladenovac. Prokic said he first thought villagers were shooting to celebrate childbirth, as is the tradition in Serbia and the Balkans.

Another Dubona villager also said he heard gunshots late last night and came out of his home.

The shooting came a day after a 13-year-old teenage boy used his father's guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade.

The bloodshed sent shockwaves through the country scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders.

Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings are extremely rare. Wednesday's school shooting was the first in recent years. The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic proposed on Friday an array of tough measures to improve gun control and bolster security in schools across the country.

Vucic suggested a moratorium on gun permits regardless of weapon type, a "practical disarmament" of Serbia and more frequent medical and psychological checks of gun owners, adding that the government would hire 1,200 new police officers to improve security in the Balkan country's schools.

Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called Thursday's drive-by shootings "a terrorist act", and hundreds of special police and helicopter units, as well as ambulances, were sent to the area.

"The Ministry of Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns with care, locked up in safes or closets so they are out of reach of others, particularly children," police said in a statement that also announced tightened controls on gun owners in the future.

The Chinese embassy in Serbia said in a notice on Friday that there were no reports of Chinese casualties. It also reminded Chinese citizens and enterprises near the area to "stay vigilant and take precautions".

Xinhua