Serbian President calls for unity following second mass killing

Aleksandar Vučić i članovi Vlade Srbije
Foto: Tanjug/Sava Radovanović

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called for national unity in fighting evil following the second mass killing in as many days which he said is an attack on the entire country.

A 21 year old man killed 8 and wounded 14 people in three villages outside the town of Mladenovac on the night of Thursday-Friday.

“We have to continue living freely. We just have to decide to oppose this evil…. We have to beat this together. This has nothing to do with political parties,” Vucic told a news conference carried live on Serbian TV stations.

He added that the main thing is not to prevent the spread of panic but to prevent the spread of lies.

“Last night’s attack was an act of terrorism. Our Special Anti-Terrorist Unit was tasked with finding and neutralizing the terrorist. He was arrested and he will not see the light of day anymore, metaphorically speaking. He will not leave jail,” Vucic said.

Commenting the school shooting, Vucic said there were calls to release the 13 year old shooter because he is under the age of criminal accountability. “Are you serious? I am sick of romanticized stories,” he said. “The police intervened 25 times yesterday because young people imitated the monster killer,” Vucic said.

“There will be justice for the little monster and the slightly older monster,” he said.

The president said that the government will urgently draft changes to the law on firearms and ammunition to introduce stricter conditions to own firearms. “That means that anyone who does not meet these conditions will have to relinquish their weapons….We are going to disarm Serbia,” he said.

Vucic said that more police officers would be brought in to inspect and guard schools. “Police officers have to inspect 2-3 schools daily. We will bring in 1,000 more police officers to spend time in schools so that there is always a police officer in every school. I am sure that will reduce peer violence in schools,” he said.

He said that stricter measures will be introduced for owners of firearms, adding that if they do not meet the conditions they will be forced to relinquish their weapons to the police. According to him, owners of illegal firearms will be given a month to surrender them. He said longer jail sentences will be introduced for firearms offences.

He said the number of firearms has been reduced from more than 950,000 to 750,000. If we reduce the number of 350,000 even that will not be enough.