At least 10 people were killed in Montenegro after a gunman carried out a rampage attack by Reuters

Written by Stevo Vasiljevic

Cetinje, Montenegro (Reuters) – A gunman killed at least 10 people in an attack on a small Montenegrin town on Wednesday, police said, in one of the worst mass killings in the small Balkan country.

A 45-year-old man, identified by police as Alexander Martinovich, was on the run after opening fire on a restaurant in the town of Cetinje, where he killed four people.

Police said the shooter moved to three other locations, killing a family member, two children and three other people. Four other people sustained life-threatening injuries.

The suspect, who media reports said had a history of illegal weapons possession, was at large around Cetinje, a small town in the valley surrounded by rugged hills about 38 kilometers west of Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.

A reporter for state-run RTCG radio said police deployed a drone with thermal vision to search for the suspect. Special police and anti-terrorism units are also searching for the suspect in the hills.

“The perimeter is tight… We will do everything in our power to put this person under control and arrest him,” Police Director Lazar Šepanovic said.

He added that he believed the suspect had been drinking heavily before the shooting. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said there was a quarrel in which pistols were fired.

Police said the shooting was not believed to be linked to organized crime.

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Montenegro, which has a deep-rooted gun culture. In 2022, 11 people, including two children and a gunman, were also killed in Cetinje in a mass attack.

Wednesday’s incident shocked the country, which has a population of 605,000 people. Spaich described the shooting as a “horrible 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 as its snow-covered streets were empty except for law enforcement. Police urged people to stay inside their homes and a video showed police officers cordoning off a neighborhood where lampposts were decorated with festive lights.

Despite strict gun laws, the Western Balkans, made up of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, are still full of weapons. Most of them are from the bloody wars of the 1990s, but some even date back to World War I.

Spaich said authorities would consider tightening standards for owning and carrying firearms, including the possibility of imposing a complete ban on weapons.