A gunman who started a shooting spree at a restaurant in southern Montenegro killed a total of 12 people, including two children, a prosecutor has said.
“Twelve people were killed of whom two were children”, up from a previous toll of at least 10 in yesterday’s attack, prosecutor Andrijana Nastic told reporters in Cetinje.
The victims were killed at five different locations, with the first four in the restaurant, the prosecutor said.
“Each location was inspected and evidence was taken.
“Prosecutor and police actions are ongoing, to determine the circumstances under which the event took place,” she said.
Police carried out an hours-long manhunt for the suspect, and when he was surrounded, he made an attempt to take his own life, police chief Lazar Scepanovic told reporters.
A gunman died from self-inflicted injuries after attempting suicide, the country’s interior minister has said.
Mr Scepanovic said the suspect “had consumed alcoholic beverages all day” before an incident between him and another restaurant guest.
“When he saw that he was in a hopeless situation, he attempted suicide. He did not succumb to his injuries on the spot, but during the transport to hospital,” Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic told Montenegro’s state broadcaster, RTCG.
In attack, which started around 5.30pm local time (4.30pm Irish time) in Bajice village near Cetinje, the 45-year-old shot and killed 12 people, two of whom were aged 10 and 13, according to the police.
Mr Saranovic said he had also “killed members of his own family”.
He then “went home, took a weapon, used firearms and killed four people at one location”, and then went to three other places.
Four people were also seriously wounded and transported to a hospital in the capital, Podgorica.
The lives of three of them were still in danger, Health Minister Vojislav Simun said.
The police ruled out a “showdown between organised criminal groups,” and said firearms used were illegal.
The government declared three days of national mourning.
“A terrible tragedy has struck all of us in Cetinje, in the village of Bajice,” Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told state broadcaster RTCG.
‘Shocked and shaken’
Mr Spajic told state broadcaster RTCG the incident was a “restaurant fight” gone wrong, and that he would be tightening the country’s criteria for firearms possession.
“It was simply a restaurant fight where guns were drawn, and everything went in a different direction in which it should not have gone.
“This is a tragedy after which we must ask ourselves who should be allowed to possess firearms in Montenegro,” he said.
Police had sealed off the area surrounding the restaurant, said an AFP photographer.
Dozens of officers, police vehicles and at least one ambulance were at the scene.
President Jakov Milatovic said he was “shocked and shaken by this tragedy that has cast a shadow over our Cetinje”.
“Our thoughts tonight are with the families who lost their loved ones and the citizens of Cetinje,” Mr Milatovic said on social media platform X.
“The whole of Montenegro feels and shares your pain. We pray and hope for the recovery of all the wounded.”
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research programme, there are approximately 245,000 firearms in circulation in Montenegro.
But mass shootings are rare in the Balkan nation of more than 620,000 people.
In 2022, a man murdered ten people in Cetinje, including two children, in broad daylight before being killed, one of the deadliest such incidents to hit the country.
Organised crime and corruption have remained two major issues plaguing Montenegro, which authorities have pledged to tackle under pressure from the European Union that the tiny nation aspires to join.