Gunman kills wife and another woman before opening fire on café customers
Five people have been killed and at least 20 injured after a man entered a cafe in northern Serbia and sprayed them with automatic gun fire.
The suspect was arrested after the attack at 1.40am on Saturday in a village close to the town of Zrenjanin.
Police say five people have been killed and at least 20 others injured in cafe shooting in northern Serbia village https://t.co/q0J4IHVQDZ
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Police said a man identified only as Z.S. first killed his wife and another woman before randomly shooting at the other occupants of the cafe.
The motives behind the shooting are being investigated.
Witnesses told Serbia's state TV that the attacker came to the cafe and saw his wife there with a group of friends. He then went home and came back with a gun.
"He just pulled out a gun and started shooting, first into the air," one of the witnesses, Svetozar Manojlovic, said
"It sounded like firecrackers at first," he said. "Then the guy next to me fell down and others started falling down. It was total chaos."
Serbia's interior minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said that the cafe guests eventually managed to grab the weapon from the man's hands when he tried to run away.
Police in the vicinity arrived swiftly and caught the suspect.
He said that the probable motive was jealousy.
Mr Stefanovic said the automatic weapon was illegal and appealed to citizens to hand over illegal weapons that many people have following the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s.
"This was completely unexpected," Mr Stefanovic said, speaking in front of the Makijato cafe.
"There were no signs at all, people tell us that he was completely calm and normal," he said.
The wounded were taken to hospitals in nearby Zrenjanin and Novi Sad.
Doctors in Zrenjanin said seven people underwent operation and were in a serious condition.
