Shocked Serbians mourn victims of school shooting

BELGRADE, Serbia — Scores of Serbian students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, paid silent homage on Thursday to peers killed a day earlier when a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns in a school shooting rampage that sent shockwaves through the nation and triggered moves to boost gun control.

The students filled the streets around the school in central Belgrade as they streamed in from all over the city. Earlier, thousands had lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys to commemorate the eight children and a school guard who were killed on Wednesday morning.

People cried and hugged outside the school as they stood in front of heaps of flowers, small teddy bears and soccer balls. A gray and pink toy elephant was placed by the school fence along with messages of grief, and a girl’s ballet shoes hung from the fence.

The Balkan nation is struggling to come to terms with what has happened. Though awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings still have been extremely rare — and this is the first school shooting in Serbia’s modern history.

The tragedy also sparked a debate about the general state of the nation following decades of crises and conflicts whose aftermath have created a state of permanent insecurity and instability, along with deep political divisions.

Dragan Popadic, a psychology professor at Belgrade University, told The Associated Press that it’s still unclear what caused the teenager to react in such a way, but that the tragedy has exposed the level of violence present in society and caused a deep shock.

“All of a sudden, we are living in a different world,” he said. “We used to live in a world where it was impossible for a 13-year-old to be a mass killer and now, all of a sudden, it is possible and we have to accept that it happened.”

Such a change, Popadic added, is “deeply disturbing.”