Eight students and a security guard at a Belgrade primary school in Serbia were killed in a shooting on Wednesday. executed by a student, in which six other students and their teacher were also injured.
The incident caused shock in this country, where There had not been a shooting of this magnitude at a school in decades.
Shortly after the shooting, which took place around 8:40 a.m., police cordoned off the perimeter of the school, where numerous ambulances came to collect the injured, as concerned parents waited outside the school for their children, visibly distressed.
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The author of the attack
Authorities identified the suspect as Kosta Kecmanovic, a 13-year-old student, that he was found in the schoolyard and detained, saying that he was armed with two pistols, one in his backpack and another that he was carrying.
The ministry reported that the young man arrested was “suspected of having shot several times at students and a school guard with a pistol belonging to his father.”
“All police forces are on the ground and are working to clarify the facts and circumstances that led to this tragedy,” according to the ministry.
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The authorities have indicated that the minor, a student from the school where the shooting took place, he had been preparing the attack for a long time.
It was he himself who notified the Police, reports the N1 station, which adds that before the attack he had prepared a list with the people he wanted to kill.
He also had a diagram that he himself had drawn of the entrance to the school and the closest classrooms in which he shot.
In addition, the boy practiced with his father at shooting ranges and with that activity he had learned to shoot, according to the Interior Minister, Bratislav Gasic.
The suspect “planned the shooting for a month and made a list of children he planned to kill,” Veselin Milic, Belgrade’s police chief, told a news conference. “The sketch looks like a video game or a horror movie, which indicates that he planned in detail, by class, who to kill,” Milic added.
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Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said the suspect’s father, owner of the alleged weapons used in the shooting, was also under arrest.
“The father claims that the weapons were kept in a safe with a code, but apparently the boy had the code, since he managed to take the pistols and three chargers with 15 bullets each,” Gasic said.
The alleged attacker was described as a model student, but he had gotten bad grades in history.
According to eyewitnesses, the author entered the classroom for that subject and began shooting, first at the history teacher and then at the students.
Police did not release any additional information about the suspected shooter or comment on any possible motive. The minister dismissed media reports that bullying was a possible motive for the shooting. and said that “no conclusion had been reached”.
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In addition to the eight minors killed and the security guard also deceased, there are six students and a teacher injured. A girl suffered serious brain injuries, underwent a difficult surgical operation and her life is in danger, hospital sources reported.
In another Belgrade hospital, the Emergency Center, three children and a teacher underwent surgery and one of them, a minor with injuries to the thorax and spine, is still in serious condition.
Officials said multiple resources were being deployed to help students, families and teachers affected by the shooting.
“A team of psychologists and others… were immediately called in to provide adequate support to students, employees and parents during this traumatic period,” Education Minister Branko Ruzic told the media.
He also described the shooting as the “greatest tragedy” to occur in the Serbian school system in recent history. “It is unimaginable when you see these scenes, what it was like for these children who felt such fear, for the guards and the teachers when they tried to protect the children,” the official added.
Gun violence in schools is extremely rare in Serbia, where the purchase of a firearm requires a special permit.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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