Police officers and civil protection units secure a crime scene after a gunman killed several people in the village of Bajice near Cetinje, on January 1, 2025. Agence France-Presse

CETINJE, Montenegro — At least 10 people, including two children, were killed by a gunman who launched a shooting spree that started in a village restaurant near the southern Montenegro city of Cetinje, police said.

Authorities launched a manhunt for the suspect, and when he was surrounded, he “shot himself in the head”, police chief Lazar Scepanovic told reporters.

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“An attempt was made to transport him to a clinical center but he succumbed to his injuries in the meantime,” Scepanovic said.

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The shooter had killed at least 10 people, two of whom were minors, Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic said earlier, adding that he had also “killed members of his own family”.

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According to police, the children were aged 10 and 13.

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“A terrible tragedy has struck all of us in Cetinje, in the village of Bajice,” Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told state broadcaster RTCG.

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Four people seriously wounded in the attack were fighting for their lives in hospital in the capital Podgorica, Spajic said.

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The government declared three days of national mourning from Thursday.

Police had initially said that the killings took place in a restaurant in Bajice. But police chief Scepanovic later told reporters that people were killed at four different locations.

The suspect had “consumed alcoholic beverages all day” before the incident between him and another restaurant guest, said Scepanovic.

He then “went home, took a weapon, used firearms and killed four people at one location”.

Illegal weapons

An earlier police statement had identified the shooter as “A.M., 45” and ruled out the shootings being a “showdown between organized criminal groups”.

Spajic confirmed that in his comments to state broadcaster RTCG.

“It was simply a restaurant fight where guns were drawn and everything went in a different direction in which it should not have gone,” said the prime minister.

He also announced he would be tightening the criteria for firearms possession.

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According to police, the shooter’s firearms were illegal.

“This is a tragedy after which we must ask ourselves who should be allowed to possess firearms in Montenegro,” said Spajic.

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.

“Our thoughts tonight are with the families who lost their loved ones and the citizens of Cetinje,” President Jakov Milatovic said on X.

“The whole of Montenegro feels and shares your pain. We pray and hope for the recovery of all the wounded.”

Mass shootings are rare in the Balkan nation of 620,000 people.

In 2022, a man murdered 10 Cetinje residents, including two children, in broad daylight before being killed, so far one of the deadliest such incidents to rock the Balkan country.

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Organized 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.ezjili

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