Mass shooting spree in Serbia leaves 13 dead, 2 injured
  • 10 years ago
Thirteen people in a village outside of Belgrade were gunned down by a 60-year-old assailant with no apparent motive.
The killing spree is the worst peace time shooting since the end of the Balkan War. Thirteen people, including one two-year-old child, were killed instantly by the man who also turned the gun on his wife and himself.
The man identified as Ljubisa Bogdanovic shot his son in the head inside their home, killing him, and shot at his wife, wounding but not killing her. He then killed 12 of his neighbours in four nearby homes. Bogdanovic reportedly then turned the gun on himself, shooting himself nine times in the head.
The assailant and his wife were critically injured, but survived the gunshots.
The killings happened in the village of Velika Ivanca, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of the Serbian capital.
"They were killed in five houses, mainly relatives and neighbors," Milorad Veljovic, the head of the Serbian Interior Ministry's emergencies department, told Radio B92. "We don't know the motive."
According to the non-government Gun Policy group, private gun ownership in Serbia could be as high as 58 people per 100.
Serbia ranks 25th out of 178 countries indexed by Gun Policy for the number of guns privately owned per capita.