Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade

Police block streets around the Vladislav Ribnikar school in Belgrade, Serbia, after the shooting on Wednesday. Pic/AP

A teenage boy opened fire at a school in Serbia's capital Wednesday, killing eight children and a school guard, police said. Six more children and a teacher were injured and hospitalized.

Police identified the shooter by his initials, K.K., and said he had opened fire with his father's gun. He was arrested in the school yard, police said. A statement identified him as a student at the school in central Belgrade who was born in 2009.

Also Read: More than 21K prisoners freed in Myanmar as goodwill move

A student who heard the shooting described the suspect as a "quiet guy" who "looked nice." "He was having good grades, but we didn't know much about him," the
student said. "He was not so open with everybody, but surely I wasn't expecting this to happen."

Unlike in the United States, mass shootings in Serbia and in the wider Balkan region are extremely rare; none were reported at schools in recent years. In the last mass shooting, a Balkan war veteran in 2013 killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever