A man has been arrested on suspicion of killing eight people and wounding at least 10, in the second mass shooting in Serbia in days.
An attacker armed with an automatic weapon opened fire from a moving vehicle on Thursday night in the town of Mladenovac, south of the capital Belgrade, before fleeing, state-run RTS television reported.
The shooting came only a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow pupils and a guard at a school in Belgrade.
Police arrested the suspect in the second shooting on Friday, following an all-night search by hundreds of officers who sealed off an area south of Belgrade where the shooting took place.
Authorities said that the man, identified by the initials UB, was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometres south of Belgrade.
Thursday's attacker shot randomly at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometres south of the capital, according to state broadcaster RTS.
“I heard some tak-tak-tak sounds,” recalled Milan Prokic, a resident of Dubona, a village near the town of Mladenovac. Prokic said he first thought villagers were shooting to celebrate a childbirth, as is tradition in Serbia and the Balkans.
“But it wasn’t that. Shame, great shame."
Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic described the latest shooting as a "terrorist act", Serbian news site Telegraf reported.
According to local media, after an argument near a school in Mladenovac, 42km south of Belgrade, the suspect came back with an assault rifle, opened fire and continued to shoot at people at random from a moving car.
A Reuters witness saw heavily armed police establishing a checkpoint and searching incoming traffic.
Drones, a helicopter and several police patrols searched for the suspect in the hills and forests around Dubona.
Before the second shooting, Serbia spent much of Thursday reeling from its first mass shooting in ten years.
Pupils, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to slain peers. Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes.
The same day, authorities moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them away from children. The government ordered a two-year moratorium on short-barrel guns, tougher control of people with guns and shooting grounds, and tougher sentences for people who enable minors to get hold of guns.
Serbia has a widespread gun culture, especially in rural areas.
Guns are often fired into the air at celebrations and the cult of the warrior is part of national identity. But the country also has strict gun control laws.
A registered gun owner in Serbia must be over 18, healthy, and have no criminal record. Weapons must be kept locked and separately from ammunition.
Automatic weapons are illegal and over the years authorities have offered several amnesties to those who surrender them.
Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, Wednesday's school shooting was the first in the country's modern history. The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
President Aleksandar Vucic called Wednesday's tragedy "one of the most difficult days" in recent history.
In a national address after the school shooting, Mr Vucic proposed stricter gun-control measures, including a two-year moratorium on issuing permits for firearms.
The shooting on Wednesday morning in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school also left seven people admitted in hospital — six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said on Thursday morning.
Authorities have said the shooter, whom police identified as Kosta Kecmanovic, is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental institution, while his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security because his son got hold of the guns.
A three-day mourning period will begin in the country on Friday.
