At least 10 people, including two children, were killed and four others wounded in a shooting that followed a bar brawl in a western Montenegrin city on Wednesday, officials said. The shooter was running away.
Police identified the attacker as 45-year-old Ako Martinovic. Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic told a news conference that he killed the bar owner, the bar owner’s children and members of his own family in the city of Cetinje.
“Right now, our focus is on arresting him,” Saranovic said.
Police sent special teams to search for the attacker in Cetinje, about 30 kilometers northwest of the capital Podgorica.
After opening fire in the bar, the man fled the scene armed with a weapon, a statement said.
President Jakov Milatovic said he was “shocked and appalled” by the tragedy. “Instead of the joy of the holidays… we are surrounded by the sadness of the loss of innocent lives,” Milatovic said on social media platform X.
Prime Minister Miloško Spajić went to the hospital where the injured were being treated and declared three days of mourning.
“This is a terrible tragedy that has affected all of us,” Spajic said. “All police teams are out.”
Montenegro, which has a population of about 620,000, is known for its gun culture, and many people have traditionally owned weapons.
Wednesday’s attack was the second shooting in Cetinje, Montenegro’s historic capital, in the past three years. In August 2022, an attacker also killed 10 people, including two children, before being shot dead by a passerby in Cetinje.
A report by the country’s public service broadcaster, Radio and Television of Montenegro, which published Martinovic’s photo on its website, said he was known for erratic behavior and had been detained in the past for illegal possession of weapons. Was.
The report said he went home to get his gun and returned to the bar, where he opened fire, killing and wounding several people. The report said that after this he went to another place where he killed the bar owner’s children and a woman.
Police dismissed the possibility of conflict between criminal gangs and appealed to residents to remain calm and stay indoors.