Pictured: Baby-faced boy, 13, who shot dead eight students and a security guard in Serbian school massacre after making kill list of classmates to ‘liquidate’

• Eight children and guard have been killed in a shooting at a school in Belgrade
• The suspect, named as Kosta Kecmanovic, was arrested in the school yard

Eight children and their guard have been killed after a 13-year-old boy opened fire in his classroom at a Belgrade school this morning, Serbian police have said. 

Kosta Kecmanovic, 13, has been identified by police as the suspected shooter. The baby-faced teenager has now been pictured after he was arrested in the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school yard and led away with his face covered.

The shooter drew sketches of classrooms and wrote a list of children he planned to ‘liquidate’ in the massacre, police said.

‘The sketch looks like something from a video game or a horror movie, which indicates that he planned in detail, by classes, whom to liquidate,’ Veselin Milic, Belgrade’s police chief, revealed.  

Terrified students hid under their desks amid ‘non-stop shooting’ at around 8.40am. Milic added that Kecmanovic called police himself when the depraved attack was over.

Kosta Kecmanovic, 13, has been identified by police as the suspected shooter

Police officers escort a minor, a seventh grade student who is suspected of firing several shots at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school in Belgrade

Eight children and a guard are now believed to have died in a shooting after a 13-year-old boy opened fire in his classroom

Police have blocked the street around the Vladislav Ribnikar school in Belgrade, Serbia

Police received a call about the shooting in the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school at around 8.40am, they said in a statement

Terrified parents rushed to the school in the Vračar neighbourhood in central Belgrade

Distraught relatives gathered outside the school as news of the tragedy emerged, with many seen clutching their children as they made their way out of the school

At least eight children and a security guard were killed in the gun rampage amid fears the death toll could rise even further, with a teacher also fighting for their life.

The shooter first killed a guard at the school in central Belgrade and then three students in a hallway, according to Milic. 

He then entered a classroom – apparently choosing it simply because it was close to the entrance – and opened fire again, Milic said. Body bags have since been brought out of the school to a van outside.

Most students were able to flee through a back door, according to a local official. 

Milan Milosevic, a father of one of the pupils, said his daughter was in the history class where the shooter opened fire ‘randomly’ at other children as they cowered under their desks.

‘She managed to escape,’ the father told Serbian TV station N1.

‘He [the shooter] fired first at the teacher and then the children who ducked under the desks,’ Milosevic quoted his daughter as saying. 

‘They say he [the shooter] was quiet and a good pupil. He recently joined their class.’ 

Mr Milosevic said that he rushed out to the school 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.’

‘I saw the security guard lying under the table. I saw two girls with blood on their shirts,’ Mr Milosevic added.

Children were seen crying outside the school, which is an elementary school going up to grade eight for children aged six to 15

Family members were reeling as news of the shooting emerged. Serbia has not seen a school shooting of this scale in decades

Fearful relatives rushed to the elementary school and were seen consoling one another in the aftermath of the massacre

Serbia’s Interior Ministry said in an updated statement that eight children and a security guard were killed in the shooting, while six children and one school teacher were wounded. 

‘All police forces are still on the ground and are intensively working to shed light on all the facts and circumstances that led to this tragedy.’ 

A student who was in a sports class downstairs when the gunfire erupted said: ‘I was able to hear the shooting. It was non-stop.’

‘I didn’t know what was happening. We were receiving some messages on the phone.’ 

The student who heard the violence unfold, 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. ‘

‘I saw kids running out from the school, screaming. Parents came, they were in panic. Later I heard three shots,’ a girl who attends a school adjacent to Vladislav Ribnikar (pictured) told state TV

Milan Nedeljkovic, mayor of the central Vracar district where the school is located, said doctors were fighting to save a teacher’s life.

Mr Nedeljkovic said the school’s security guard likely prevented more deaths by putting himself in front of the shooter.

The guard ‘wanted to prevent the tragedy and he was the first victim,’ Nedeljkovic told reporters told journalists live on television outside the school.

‘I saw kids running out from the school, screaming. Parents came, they were in panic. Later I heard three shots,’ a girl who attends a high school adjacent to Vladislav Ribnikar told state TV RTS. 

Police sealed off the blocks around the school, in the center of Belgrade.

Officers in helmets and bulletproof vests cordoned off the area around the school, which is in the Vračar neighbourhood in central Belgrade.

Serbian media have reported that the guard was killed in the shooting. Police gave no other details. 

A row of ambulances were pictured parked on Kralja Milutin Street outside the school, the area around which was cordoned off

Terrified parents rushed to the school in the central district of Belgrade to hear news of their children

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.

Casualties are being treated and an investigation into the motives behind the shooting is under way, police said in a statement, without elaborating. 

The country’s Interior Ministry said in a statement: ‘The police sent all available patrols immediately to the spot and arrested a suspected minor – a seventh grade student who is suspected of firing several shots from his father’s gun in the direction of students and school security.’

Police sealed off the blocks around the Vladislav Ribnikar school, in the center of Belgrade

Vračar is a wealthy area of the city and a number of embassies are based there. 

A row of ambulances were pictured parked on Kralja Milutin Street outside.

Police sealed off the blocks surrounding the school. Primary schools in Serbia have eight grades. 

Mass shootings in the country are extremely rare. 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.

The western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following the unrest there.

Serbian authorities have offered several amnesties for owners to hand in or register illegal guns.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow.

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