A ‘war veteran’ killed his mother before opening fire on elderly residents and staff at a nursing home in Croatia.....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE
The gunman killed at least five people, state media reported, in a rare instance of gun violence in the Balkan country.
State broadcaster HRT said an unidentified gunman had entered a nursing home in Daruvar – some 130km east of the country’s capital Zagreb – before opening fire>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
Several others were left wounded during the shooting and are now receiving medical assistance, HRT added.
The alleged suspect, born in 1973 according to local reports, initially fled the scene before being later captured and arrested by police near Daruvar cafe.
A ‘war veteran’ killed his mother before opening fire on elderly residents and staff at a nursing home in Croatia (pictured left)
The suspect was captured by police near Daruvar cafe (pictured) after he attempted to flee the scene
Croatian newspaper Jutarnji described the alleged shooter as a ‘war veteran’ who killed his mother along with other residents and staff.
The N1 regional television reported that the gunman was a former fighter from the 1991 to 1995 war in Croatia.
The police quickly issued a statement following the shooting: ‘Today, July 22, at 10:10am, the Bjelovar-Bilogor police department received a report that a male person using a firearm killed and wounded several people in a home for the elderly and infirm.
‘The person who is linked to the crime is under the supervision of the police.
‘An investigation will follow at the scene of the incident, led by the deputy of the county state attorney’s office in Bjelovar.
It also assured that the suspect is now ‘under police supervision’.
An employee of a store in Daruvar told local media how two workers of the care home ran into his store, one with a bullet in the chest and one with an eye injury desperately looking for help.
‘I also called the police and told them where the killer was. He allegedly sat down and ordered a drink, and put the gun on the table,’ a store employee told
Dnevnik.hr
.
Other shocked witnesses spoke to local media of the horrors they saw.
One told
24Sata
: ‘Look, I don’t know what exactly happened. It’s at a crossroads with me, it’s mostly women in the home.
‘I was there at that moment, I was walking down the street, I was 80 meters away and I heard the shots.
‘At first I thought that it was some kind of construction work – the neighbor told us, adding that these ‘shots’ were heard at intervals of one to two minutes. The street is now full of police vehicles and ambulances’.
Another witness chillingly revealed the killer had gone to the nearby cafe before saying: ‘Now I killed them all’.
Daruvar is a spa town and municipality in Slavonia, with a population of 8,500 people and authorities are now investigating the motive behind the attack.
The city announced the unprecedented tragedy this morning in a statement to its official Facebook page.
It read: ‘We are shocked and in disbelief regarding this tragic event in the nursing home in Daruvar.
‘We express our sincere condolences to the families of the deceased. We are shocked by this unfortunate event.
‘The attacker was caught. The investigation is ongoing’.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said he was ‘appalled’ to hear of the shooting.
Writing on X, he said: ‘We are appalled by the murder of five people in the Home for the Elderly in Daruvar.
‘We express our condolences to the families of the victims and hope for the recovery of the wounded. I expect the competent authorities to determine all the circumstances of the terrible crime>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
‘Ministers Božinović, Beroš and Piletić will go to Daruvar and the hospital in Pakrac.’
Croatia fought a war of independence during the breakup of Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995, but now shootings in the Balkan country are rare.
Last year in neighbouring Serbia, the country was rocked by back-to-back mass shootings, including a massacre at a school in the capital in Belgrade in which 10 people were killed.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
