The massacre happened yesterday at his elementary school Belgradewhen a 13 year old boy broke into armed in order, in a clearly pre-planned attackand killed eight children and his guard schoolwounding six others students like his teacher.

The police named the assailant K.K. and stated that since 2019 he had been studying at a “good” school named after Vladislav Rybnichar in the center of the Serbian capital. planned the attack for over a month.

Belgrade police chief Veselin Milic announced that the student also drank four Molotov cocktails and made “a list of the children he planned to kill and their classes.” Milic identified the dead students as seven girls and one boy born between 2009 and 2011. “The sketch of the assailant resembles something from a video game or a horror movie, which shows that he planned in detail, by class, who he would kill.” he added.

The teenager was detained in the schoolyard after he confessed to the shooting, and police took him away with his head covered in a black cloth. According to police, he first shot a security guard and three girls in a hallway, then entered a history class and shot five more students and a teacher who is fighting for his life.

A schoolgirl who was exercising in the yard when the shooting started told local media: “I heard gunshots. They were unstoppable. I didn’t know what was going on. We received several messages by phone,” describing the attacker as a quiet child. “He got good grades. But we knew little about him, he revealed little. I certainly didn’t expect something like this to happen,” he added.

“The sketch of the assailant looks like something out of a video game or a horror movie, indicating that he planned in detail, class by class, who he would kill.”

Serbian Interior Minister Bratislava Gasic said the boy’s father and mother had also been arrested. “The father claimed that “the weapon was locked in a safe with a code, but apparently the child had the code. He took pistols and three magazines of 15 rounds each.”

Education Minister Branko Ruzic declared three days of mourning, while the Minister of Health burst into tears, calling the events “perhaps the most terrifying experience I’ve had as a doctor and as a person.”

The teenager will not be tried for a criminal offense because, according to the laws of the country, he is not yet 14 years old. President Aleksandar Vučić announced that the young man would be placed in a psychiatric hospital for observation. Shortly after his arrest, police conducted a mandatory blood test to determine if he was under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, and his father was released into custody on suspicion of committing serious crimes against public safety.

Serbia ranks fifth in the world in gun ownership: 39 weapons for every 100 inhabitants, while only 44% of these weapons are officially declared. However, the country has strict gun laws and ex-soldiers have often been given amnesties to turn them in to the authorities. So incidents like this are extremely rare, the most recent being in 2013 when a veteran of the Balkan wars stormed a school in a village in central Serbia, killing 14 students.