BELGRADE: A teenage boy opened fire at a school in Serbia’s capital Wednesday, killing eight children and a school guard, police said. Six more children and a teacher were injured and hospitalized.
Police identified the shooter by his initials, K.K., and said he had opened fire with his father’s gun. He was arrested in the school yard, police said. A statement identified him as a student at the school in central Belgrade who was born in 2009.
Police said they received a call about the shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school around 8:40 a.m. Primary schools in Serbia have eight grades, starting with first grade.
“I was able to hear the shooting. It was non-stop,” a student who was in a sports class downstairs when the gunfire erupted. “I didn’t know what was happening. We were receiving some messages on the phone.”
Unlike in the United States, mass shootings in Serbia and in the wider Balkan region are extremely rare; none were reported at schools in recent years. In the last mass shooting, a Balkan war veteran in 2013 killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Experts, however, have repeatedly warned of the number of weapons left over in the country after the wars of the 1990s. They also note that decades-long instability stemming from the conflicts as well as the ongoing economic hardship could trigger such outbursts.
Local media footage from the scene showed commotion outside the school as police removed the suspect, whose head was covered as officers led him to a car parked in the street.
The student who heard the shooting, who was identified only by her initials, E.M., because of her age, described the suspect as a “quiet guy” who “looked nice.”
“He was having good grades, but we didn’t know much about him,” the student added. “He was not so open with everybody. Surely I wasn’t expecting this to happen.”
Milan Milosevic, who said his daughter was in a history class when the shooting took place, told N1 television that he rushed out when he heard what had happened.
“I asked where is my child but no one could tell me anything at first,” he said. “Then she called and we found out she was out.”
“He (the shooter) fired first at the teacher and then the children who ducked under the desks,” Milosevic quoted his daughter as saying. “She said he was a quiet boy and a good student.”
Police sealed off the blocks around the school, in the center of Belgrade.
Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade
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Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade
- Unlike in the US, mass shootings in Serbia and in the wider Balkan region are extremely rare
- Police sealed off the blocks around the school, in the center of Belgrade
UN chief calls for ‘immediate’ Gaza ceasefire, hostage release
- Israeli strikes on Gaza continued Sunday after it expanded evacuation order for Rafah operation
- Gaza war tearing families apart, rendering people homeless, hungry and traumatized, says UN chief
KUWAIT CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday urged an immediate halt to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the return of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid,” Guterres said in a video address to an international donors’ conference in Kuwait.
“But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he added.
Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.
“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized,” Guterres said.
His remarks were played at the opening of the conference in Kuwait organized by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) and the UN’s humanitarian coordination organization OCHA.
On Friday, in Nairobi, the UN head warned Gaza faced an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
UN chief calls for ‘immediate’ Gaza ceasefire, hostage release
- UN chief: ‘The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized’
KUWAIT CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday urged an immediate halt to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the return of hostages and a “surge” in humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“I repeat my call, the world’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid,” Guterres said in a video address to an international donors’ conference in Kuwait.
“But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he added.
Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Sunday after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah despite international outcry over its military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively shutting a key aid crossing.
“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized,” Guterres said.
His remarks were played at the opening of the conference in Kuwait organized by the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) and the UN’s humanitarian coordination organization OCHA.
On Friday, in Nairobi, the UN head warned Gaza faced an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
More than 300 dead in Afghanistan flash floods: WFP
- Heavy rains on Friday sent roaring rivers of water, mud crashing through villages in several provinces
- Baghlan province hardest hit with over 300 casualties there alone, thousands of homes destroyed
LAQAYI, Afghanistan: More than 300 people were killed in flash floods that ripped through multiple Afghan provinces, the UN’s World Food Programme said Saturday, as authorities declared a state of emergency and rushed to rescue the injured.
Many people remain missing after heavy rains Friday sent roaring rivers of water and mud crashing through villages and across agricultural land in several provinces, causing what one aid group described as a “major humanitarian emergency.”
Survivors on Saturday picked through muddy, debris-littered streets and damaged buildings, an AFP journalist saw, as authorities and non-governmental groups deployed rescue workers and aid, warning that some areas had been cut off by the flooding.
Northern Baghlan province was one of the hardest hit, with more than 300 people killed there alone, and thousands of houses destroyed or damaged, according to WFP.
“On current information: in Baghlan province there are 311 fatalities, 2,011 houses destroyed and 2,800 houses damaged,” Rana Deraz, a communications officer for the United Nations agency in Afghanistan, told AFP.
There were disparities between the death tolls provided by the government and humanitarian agencies.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration said there were 218 deaths in Baghlan.
Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interior ministry, told AFP that 131 people had been killed in Baghlan, but that the government toll could rise.
“Many people are still missing,” he said.
Another 20 people were reported dead in northern Takhar province and two in neighboring Badakhshan, he added.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X: “Hundreds of our fellow citizens have succumbed to these calamitous floods.”
He added “the deluge has wrought extensive devastation upon residential properties, resulting in significant financial losses.”
Torrential rains caused heavy damage in Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan, as well as western Ghor and Herat provinces, officials said, in a country wracked by poverty and heavily dependent on agriculture.
“My house and my whole life was swept away by the flood,” said Jan Mohammad Din Mohammad, a resident of Baghlan provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri.
His family had managed to flee to higher ground but when the weather cleared and they returned home, “there was nothing left, all my belongings and my house had been destroyed,” he said.
“I don’t know where to take my family... I don’t know what to do.”
Emergency personnel were rushing to rescue injured and stranded Afghans.
The air force said it had started evacuation operations as skies cleared Saturday, adding that more than 100 injured people had been transferred to hospital.
“By announcing the state of emergency in (affected) areas, the Ministry of National Defense has started distributing food, medicine and first aid to the impacted people,” it said.
An AFP journalist saw a vehicle laden with food and water in Baghlan’s Baghlan-i-Markazi district, as well as others carrying the dead to be buried.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres “expresses his solidarity with the people of Afghanistan (and) extends his condolences to the families of the victims,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the UN was working with local authorities on providing assistance.
The International Rescue Committee was also preparing a rapid response, adding that the floods should act as an “alarm bell” reminding world leaders and donors not to forget a country devastated by decades of conflict and beset by natural calamity.
“These latest floods have caused a major humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan, which is still reeling from a string of earthquakes” this year and severe flooding in March, IRC country director Salma Ben Aissa said in a statement.
Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods had left about 100 people dead in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, authorities said.
Farmland has been swamped in a country where 80 percent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive.
Afghanistan — which had a relatively dry winter, making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall — is highly vulnerable to climate change.
The nation, ravaged by four decades of war, is one of the world’s poorest and, according to scientists, one of the worst prepared to face the consequences of global warming.
The UN special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said on X the floods were “a stark reminder of Afghanistan’s vulnerability to the #climatecrisis.”
“Both immediate aid and long term planning by the #Taliban & international actors are needed.”
Nepal’s ‘Everest Man’ claims record 29th summit
- Kami Rita Sherpa, a guide for two decades, first summitted Everest in 1994
- He climbed Everest twice last year to reclaim record after another guide equaled it
KATMANDU: Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa reached the top of Mount Everest for the 29th time Sunday, breaking his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain.
“Kami Rita reached the summit this morning. Now he has made a new record with 29 summits of Everest,” Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, his expedition organizer, told AFP.
A guide for more than two decades, Sherpa, also known as “Everest Man,” first summited the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak in 1994 when working for a commercial expedition.
Since then he has climbed Everest almost every year, guiding clients. It was not immediately clear whether he had a client with him on Sunday.
“Back again for the 29th summit to the top of the world... One man’s job, another man/woman’s dream,” Sherpa posted on his Instagram from base camp last week.
Last year, Sherpa climbed Everest twice to reclaim his record as another guide, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, equaled his number of ascents.
Sherpa, 54, has previously said that he has been “just working” and did not plan on setting records.
He has also conquered other challenging 8,000-meter peaks including the world’s second-highest mountain, K2 in Pakistan.
Nepal has issued 414 Everest permits to mountaineers for this year’s spring climbing season, which runs from April to early June.
Most Everest hopefuls are escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning more than 800 climbers will tread the path to the top of the world’s highest peak in the coming weeks after a group of Nepali climbers opened the route to the summit on Friday.
This year, China also reopened the Tibetan route to foreigners for the first time since closing it in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.
A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent in 1953.
Last year, more than 600 climbers made it to the summit of Everest but it was also the deadliest season on the mountain, with 18 fatalities.
Star duos lead Celtics, Mavs to NBA playoff victories
- Tatum scored 33 points and Brown 28 as top seeds Boston, stunned by the Cavaliers on their home court in Game 2, beat the Cavs 106-93 in Cleveland to take a 2-1 lead
- Irving scored 14 of his 22 points in the second half and Doncic scored 22 points and had 15 rebounds as the Mavericks rallied for a 105-101 victory
LOS ANGELES: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined to score 61 points to fire the Boston Celtics to a bounce-back NBA playoff win over Cleveland on Saturday as Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic led Dallas over Oklahoma City.
Tatum scored 33 points and Brown 28 as top seeds Boston, stunned by the Cavaliers on their home court in Game 2, beat the Cavs 106-93 in Cleveland to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal.
For Dallas, Irving scored 14 of his 22 points in the second half and Doncic scored 22 points and grabbed 15 rebounds as the Mavericks rallied for a 105-101 victory that put them up 2-1 against Western Conference top seeds Oklahoma City.
The Celtics emerged from a nip-and-tuck first quarter with a two-point lead and never trailed again.
“We just wanted to bounce back,” Tatum said after they pushed their advantage to 23 points by opening the third quarter on a 14-0 scoring run.
“Essentially our back was against the wall, so it was a good test for us to see how we respond,” Tatum said. “We were up for the challenge.”
Donovan Mitchell scored 33 points for the Cavaliers, but appeared to tweak his troublesome left knee in the fourth quarter.
Cleveland halted Boston’s third-quarter spurt with a 9-0 run of their own.
But the Celtics had an answer for every Cleveland surge and the Cavs could not get any closer than nine points behind in the final period.
In Dallas, the Mavericks dug deep in the face of another bruising defensive effort from the Thunder.
Irving’s second-half star turn included a floater that pushed the Dallas lead to five points with 39.3 seconds remaining.
Slovenian star Doncic took another pounding, including a hard fall flat on his back after a mid-air collision with Luguentz Dort, and said he tweaked his sprained right knee as the game ended.
“We got the win, that’s all that matters,” said Doncic, who when asked what was hurting the most — his knee, his back or his sore ankle — said “everything.”
“I think I’m battling,” he said. A day without travel before the Mavs host Game 4 on Monday was welcome, he added.
P.J. Washington led the Mavs with 27 points and Dereck Lively added 12 off the bench to help Dallas withstand a 31-point performance from Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Both teams struggled to get their offenses firing in the first quarter, which ended with Dallas up by three.
Oklahoma City connected on 60 percent of their shots in the second quarter to take a 52-51 half-time lead and pushed their advantage to 65-55 with an 11-0 scoring burst in the third.
The Mavs responded with a 16-0 run that featured a huge dunk by Washington and was capped by his three-pointer that pushed their lead to 71-65.
The run energized the American Airlines Center crowd, but Oklahoma City quickly cut the lead to one before the Mavs responded again.
Irving connected on a pair of three-pointers and fed Daniel Gafford for a dunk before Tim Hardaway Jr. closed the third quarter with a three-pointer that put Dallas up 82-78.
Irving, who handed out seven assists as he focused early on getting his teammates involved, said one Dallas coach told him he’d left it a bit late to make a scoring push.
But Doncic said his contribution was “amazing.”
“He’s doing it all on both ends of the floor,” Doncic said.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said his young team — with an average age of just over 23 — got a little sloppy in the third quarter to squander a golden chance to grab a win in Dallas.
“There’s a lot of things we can learn from,” he said.
