8 students,1 security guard killed in Serbia's capital Belgrade

Belgrade: Eight students and a security guard have been killed after a shooting at a school in Serbia's capital Belgrade. Another six pupils and a teacher were injured in the attack and have been taken to hospital, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Police arrested a 14-year-old student at the Vladislav Ribnikar school in central Belgrade in connection with Wednesday morning's attack. An investigation into the motives behind the incident is under



way.

Mass shootings are comparatively rare in Serbia, which has very strict gun laws, but gun ownership in the country is among the highest in Europe.

The western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following wars and unrest in the 1990s. In 2019, it was estimated that there are 39.1 firearms per 100 people in Serbia - the third highest in the world, behind the US and Montenegro.