At least 10 dead in Montenegro after gunman’s rampage By Reuters
By Stevo Vasiljevic
CETINJE, Montenegro (Reuters) – A gunman killed at least 10 people in a shooting spree in a small town in Montenegro on Wednesday, police said, one of the worst mass killings in the small Balkan nation.
A 45-year-old man, identified by police as Aleksandar Martinovic, was on the run after he opened fire at a restaurant in the town of Cetinje, killing four people.
The gunman moved on to three other locations and shot a family member, two children and three other people, police said. Four other people suffered life-threatening injuries.
The suspect, who media reports said had a history of illegally possessing weapons, was near Cetinje, a small valley town surrounded by rugged hills about 38 km (23.6 miles) west of the Montenegrin capital Podgorica.
A reporter from state broadcaster RTCG said police used a drone with a thermal imaging camera to search for the suspect. Special police and counter-terrorism units were also searching the hills for the suspect.
“The perimeter is narrowing. … We will do everything we can to bring this person under control and arrest him,” said police director Lazar Scepanovic.
He said the suspect probably drank a lot of alcohol before the shooting. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said there was a fight in which pistols were fired.
Police said the shooting was not related to organized crime.
Mass shootings are comparatively rare in Montenegro, which has a deeply rooted gun culture. In 2022, also in Cetinje, eleven people, including two children and a gunman, were killed in a mass attack.
Wednesday’s incident shocked the country of 605,000 people. Spajic called the shootings a “terrible tragedy” and declared three days of national mourning.
Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic said he was “horrified” by the attack. “We pray and hope for the recovery of the wounded,” Milatovic said in a statement.
Cetinje was eerily quiet and the snow-covered streets were empty except for the police. Police urged people to stay in their homes and videos showed officers cordoning off a neighborhood where lampposts were decorated with holiday lights.
Despite strict gun laws, the Western Balkan states, consisting of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, continue to be full of weapons. Most come from the bloody wars of the 1990s, but some date back to the First World War.
Spajic said authorities would consider tightening the criteria for owning and carrying firearms, including the possibility of a complete ban on weapons.
