BELGRADE, May 5, 2023 (AFP) – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic vowed on Friday to launch a large-scale disarmament plan to remove hundreds of thousands of guns from the country, following back-to-back mass shootings in the Balkan country this week.
“We will do an almost complete disarming of Serbia,” Vucic said during a live broadcast, hours after the latest shooting killed eight people.
The president said the plan aimed to remove hundreds of thousands of guns from the public that would include a massive review of registered weapons in the country, while also cracking down on illegal arms.
Vucic had said earlier in the week that there were more than 760,000 registered firearms in the country of roughly 6.8 million.
Gun ownership is high in Serbia, where shooting ranges are popular but special permits are required to possess firearms.
The wars in the Balkans during the 1990s amid the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia also saw a large number of weapons circulate in the region.
The latest incident happened less than 48 hours after the worst school shooting in Serbia’s recent history, when a 13-year-old killed nine people, including eight fellow students, at a school in downtown Belgrade on Wednesday.
