Serbia mourns after 13 killed in 'monstrous' bloodbath

Serbia held a national day of mourning Wednesday after a war veteran rampaged through a tiny village near Belgrade shooting dead 13 relatives and neighbours, including his son, his mother and a two-year-old. Flags stood at half-mast throughout the country and newspapers blacked out their front pages to commemorate Serbia's worst such massacre in two decades. "The worst crime in the history of Serbia," read the headline on the front page of the Nase novine daily. "The war veteran massacred half a village as it slept," added the tabloid, above photos of all 13 victims. Another tabloid, the Blic daily, wrote: "Five families snuffed out at dawn." Most papers carried pictures of shocked and weeping relatives and neighbours in the village of Velika Ivanca, located about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Belgrade. The gunman, identified as 60-year-old Ljubisa Bogdanovic, went house-to-house at 5:00 am local time (0300 GMT) on Tuesday methodically shooting his victims in five houses located on a hill on the outskirts of the village, police said. The houses are only some 10 metres (32 feet) away from each other. He killed six men, six women and the child, a two-year old boy, according to the victims' neighbours. He then shot himself in the head and attempted to kill his wife Javorka. He is "unconscious and in critical condition," said Zorica Markovic, the spokeswoman for Belgrade's main hospital, while Javorka's life is not in danger, medical authorities said. The killing spree has sparked a new debate on gun control in the Balkan country with Prime Minister Ivica Dacic saying society needed to "pay more attention to prevent such crimes." Serbian police chief Milorad Veljovic said a new law, prepared after a similar incident in 2007, would be sent to parliament "in the coming days." "The draft law foresees a medical examination every three to five years for all those who have a licence for a gun or ammunition," Veljovic told national broadcaster RTS. According to 2007 research at the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Serbia had the fifth largest civilian firearms arsenal out of 178 countries, with an average 37.8 guns per 100 inhabitants. It was a "monstrous" crime, the police chief told reporters on the scene. Bogdanovic's motive for the bloodbath remained unclear and his wife was battling to come to terms with the 60-year-old's sudden spree of violence. Speaking to police from her hospital bed, Javorka said her husband had a "bad temper" but she had no idea what could have driven him to the massacre, Vecernje Novosti daily reported in its online edition. "He had a bad temper, but I did not dream of this. We were all like a big family," she said. Neighbours said Bogdanovic, who fought for Serbia in the 1990s war in Croatia and had a firearms license, lost his job as a labourer last year. He then became a farmer. Locals said Bogdanovic's father had committed suicide when he was a child while some of his family members had undergone psychiatric treatment in the past. Aleksandar Stekic summed up the feeling of shock and incomprehension in the tiny village of only 1,700. Describing the killer as a "good man", he said with tears in his eyes: "He wouldn't hurt a fly... I don't know what has happened."