Lukavac, Bosnia and Herzegovina

A child was arrested for allegedly shooting a teacher at an elementary school in the northeastern Bosnian city of Lukavac, on Wednesday (June 14), said officials, as well as the family of the victim, as per AFP. According to local media reports, the child was 13 years old while it was later confirmed that the minor was a former student at the school where the incident took place. 

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What do we know about the shooting incident?

Addressing the incident, Tuzla Canton Ministry of Internal Affairs, said, “The child, who is not yet 14, is under police supervision in the premises of the Lukavac Police Department, while firearms and other discarded items are secured until the investigation begins.” Tuzla Canton is one of ten in Bosnia’s Federation entity. 

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Meanwhile, Lukavac Mayor Edin Delic took to Facebook and wrote, “There are no children [wounded], so I ask parents to control their panic. The perpetrator is a minor child and he was immediately arrested.” The Tuzla Canton interior ministry, as per local media reports, said that the shooting was reported around 9:00 am (local time). 

“The child was transferred to another school from the start of the second semester as a result of a disciplinary measure,” Ahmed Omerovic, the education minister for Tuzla, told reporters, confirming that the minor was a former student of the school. The student was recently transferred to another school, said local media reports. 

After the shooting incident, a local politician in Lukavac, Dino Osmanovic, claimed the student previously threatened to take revenge after being expelled back in May.

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He took to Facebook and also claimed that he had notified the police of the danger, but was told that “they had taken necessary measures, that everything was under control and that they cannot share more information about the case because it involves a juvenile.”

According to the education minister, June 14 was the last day of classes in all elementary and high schools under its jurisdiction. Notably, gun ownership in Bosnia is high with almost 31 out of every 100 citizens owning a gun in the Balkan nation, according to a Small Arms Survey research group. 

Condition of the victim

According to local media reports, the victim who is wounded is undergoing medical treatment. The father of the victim, Ismet Osmanovic, told local broadcaster N1 that he was an English teacher who also worked as an assistant principal of the school. “The operation is still ongoing. Doctors told me he was stable,” said Osmanovic, as quoted by AFP. 

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The victim was taken to the nearby Tuzla University Clinical Centre released a statement and said that he had sustained “gunshot wounds to the neck”. It added, “The patient was intubated and he is being operated on,” reported the local media. 

Shooting in neighbouring Serbia

The incident comes a little over a month after a school shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Vračar, an upscale area of the Serbian capital where a 13-year-old allegedly killed nine students in Belgrade. 

(With inputs from agencies) 

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