Montenegro began three days of national mourning on Thursday, January 2, after the shooting started the day before in a restaurant in the south of the country by a drunken man, which left twelve people dead, including two children.
“Twelve people were killed, including two children”, prosecutor Andrijana Nastic told reporters on Thursday. The murderer, aged 45, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head while he was surrounded by the police of this Balkan country. The drama began on Wednesday around 4:30 p.m. in a restaurant in the village of Bajicenear the town of Cetinje. The man “after arguing with a customer with whom he had spent a large part of the day, and having drunk large quantities of alcohol, went home, took a gun and killed four people”said police chief Lazar Scepanovic.
The victims were killed in five different locationsaccording to the prosecutor. The murderer notably killed a member of his own family, the owner of the restaurant and two of his children, aged 10 and 13.. Four people were also seriously injured and hospitalized in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. Thursday morning, three of them were still in serious condition while the fourth, injured in the head, was in very critical condition, hospital director Aleksandar Radovic told the press.
“Killing children (…) is completely senseless. It's not a crime, it's worse than that”Danilo Zecevic, a retiree, told AFP in Cetinje. Candles will be lit Thursday evening in tribute to the victims on the main square of Podgorica, announced the mayor of the capital, Sasa Mujovic. “Our thoughts this evening are with the families who lost loved ones and the residents of Cetinje. All of Montenegro feels and shares your pain. We pray for the recovery of all the injured”wrote the country's president, Jakov Milatovic, on Wednesday on X.
Update – Shooting in Montenegro: an armed man kills several people before committing suicide, a new report shows twelve dead including two children https://t.co/no3Cir1oo7 via @lindependant
— The Independent (@lindependent) https://twitter.com/lindependant/status/1874728272346611912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The perpetrator of the shooting was able to be located and surrounded after several hours of tracking by the police and the army. When the officers asked him “to put down his gun, he shot himself in the head”said Mr. Scepanovic. “We tried to transport him to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries”he clarified.
Armes
Evoking “a fight in a restaurant, during which weapons were drawn, and which escalated”Prime Minister Milojko Spajic announced Wednesday evening new restrictions coming on gun ownership. “This tragedy raises the question of who can have weapons in Montenegro“, he added. The National Security Council is due to meet on Friday to discuss “challenges in the detection and seizure of illegal weapons” as well as the recruitment of additional police officers, the government said in a statement.
The police assured that this shooting was not “not the result of a confrontation between groups belonging to organized crime”. Corruption and organized crime have long affected Montenegro, and the town of Cetinje has been particularly affected in recent months.
In June, two people died and three were injured there in an explosion – members of a criminal group, according to police. Among the injured were two other suspected gang members, as well as a female bystander. After this explosion, the government promised to tackle organized crime. But at the end of September, another member of a mafia clan was killed, again in Cetinje, the former royal capital nestled in the hollow of a valley. He was shot dead by a sniper while sitting in his garden.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, around 245,000 firearms are in circulation in Montenegro – for a population of 630,000 inhabitants.
