In Montenegro, twelve people, including two minors, killed by an armed man

Twelve people, including two minors, were killed by an armed man on Wednesday 1^is January, in a town in southern Montenegro, among them the owner of a restaurant – and his children – where the suspect had spent the day.

The perpetrator of the shooting committed suicide, his escape having ended after several hours of tracking by the police and the army. The officers surrounded him and, when they ordered him “to put down his weapon, he shot himself in the head”police chief Lazar Scepanovic told reporters. “We tried to transport him to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries”he clarified.

Contrary to initial information provided by the police, the victims were not all shot dead in a restaurant near the town of Cetinje, a former royal capital nestled in the hollow of a valley. It all started when the suspect, aged 45, “after arguing with a customer with whom he had spent a large part of the day, and having drunk large quantities of alcohol, returned home, took a gun, and killed four people »explained Mr. Scepanovic.

He then went to three other locations where he killed six more people, including a member of his own family, the restaurant owner and two of the latter’s children, aged 10 and 13. “ He tried to kill four other people whose lives are no longer in danger.”said Mr. Scepanovic. Prosecutor Andrijana Nastic announced to the press on Thursday morning that the death toll was now twelve.

New restrictions on firearms

In a speech during the evening, Prime Minister Milojko Spajic announced a three-day national mourning, on January 2, 3 and 4. Evoking “a fight in a restaurant, during which weapons were drawn and which escalated”Mr. Spajic also announced new upcoming restrictions on the possession of firearms. “This tragedy raises the question of who can have weapons in Montenegro”he added.

“Our thoughts this evening are with the families who have 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”wrote the country’s president, Jakov Milatovic, on the social network

On site, near the 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. Assuring, in his press release, that this shooting was not “not the result of a confrontation between groups belonging to organized crime”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 in an explosion there – 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. 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, which has 630,000 inhabitants, has often promised to tackle these groups in the hope of joining the European Union.