A man killed at least ten people, including two minors, by opening fire in a restaurant in southern Montenegro this Wednesday, January 1 before fleeing.
An armed man killed at least ten people, including two minors, this Wednesday, January 1, by opening fire in a restaurant in a town in southern Montenegro, near the town of Cetinje, said the country’s Interior Minister.
“In the afternoon, in a restaurant in Bajice, AM, 45, killed several people using firearms. The man, armed, fled the building and fled,” reported the public radio and television (RTCG), citing a police press release.
Referring to a “private” event, Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic told the press that the suspect had “taken the lives of at least ten people, including two minors from the Vuletic family”, which owns the restaurant in which the shooting took place.
Four people seriously injured
According to the first elements communicated by the government and the police, it was a fight that went wrong and the suspect also shot members of his own family.
This man was still on the run in the evening, sought by the police and the army. In a speech in the evening evening, Prime Minister Milojko four people were seriously injured. Spajic announced a three-day national mourning, on January 2, 3 and 4, and specified that
“The doctors are fighting to save them,” the Prime Minister said, adding that “all police teams, special units and all possible law enforcement agencies (were) in Cetinje.”
“We are looking for the culprit and we are on the right path,” he stressed. According to him, it was “only a fight in a restaurant, during which weapons were drawn, and which degenerated”. Milojko Spajic also announced new restrictions to come on gun ownership.
“This tragedy raises the question of who can have weapons in Montenegro,” he added.
-On site, near the traditional restaurant in which the tragedy took place, the police prevented anyone from approaching in the evening. Dozens of men, police vehicles and at least one ambulance were visible behind the barriers, noted an AFP journalist.
Organized crime trail ruled out
Assuring in its press release that this shooting was “not the result of a confrontation between groups belonging to organized crime”, the Montenegrin police urged residents to stay at home while the suspect was on the run.
Although the police seem to favor the hypothesis of a non-mafia crime, organized crime and corruption 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 attack 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 and killed by sniper fire while sitting in his backyard.
These settling of scores are all linked, investigators suspect, to the conflict which has opposed two criminal groups for years, the “skaljari” and the “kavaci”.
The small Balkan country – 630,000 inhabitants – has often promised to tackle these crimes in the hope of joining the European Union.
“Our thoughts this evening are with the families who lost loved ones and with the residents of Cetinje. All of Montenegro feels and shares your pain. We pray for the recovery of all the injured,” the country’s president, Jakov Milatovic, wrote on X .
