West News Wire: In this city in western Montenegro, a man went on a shooting rampage on Friday, killing 10 people, including two children, before being shot dead by a bystander, according to officials.
In a video statement provided to the media, the police chief of Montenegro, Zoran Brdjanin, identified the attacker as a 34-year-old man only known by his initials, V.B.
Two children, aged 8 and 11, as well as their mother, who lived as tenants in the attacker’s home in Cetinje’s Medovina neighborhood, were shot and killed first, according to Brdjanin, using a hunting rifle.
The shooter then entered the street and shot 13 more people at random, the chief claiming seven of them died.
“At the moment, it is unclear what provoked V.B. to commit this atrocious act,” Brdjanin said.
Andrijana Nastic, the prosecutor coordinating the crime scene investigation, told journalists that the gunman was killed by a passerby and that a police officer was among the wounded. She said nine of those killed died at the scene and two died at a hospital where they were taken for surgery.
Cetinje, the seat of Montenegro’s former royal government, is 36 kilometers (22 miles) west of Podogrica, the current capital of the small Balkan nation.
Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic wrote on his Telegram channel that the incident was “an unprecedented tragedy” and urged the nation “to be, in their thoughts, with the families of the innocent victims, their relatives, friends and all the people of Cetinje.”
President Milo Djukanovic said on Twitter that he was “deeply moved by the news of the terrible tragedy” in Cetinje, calling for “solidarity” with the families who lost loved-ones in the incident.
