Belgrade: According to police, the teen who opened fire at a school in the Serbian capital on Wednesday made sketches of the classrooms and wrote a list of the people he intended to attack.

Before being apprehended, he killed eight other students and a security guard. According to senior police official Veselin Milic, the shooter first killed a guard at the school in central Belgrade before killing three students in a hallway. He then went into a classroom, which he apparently chose only because it was close to the entrance, and started shooting once more, according to Milic.

When the attack was over, the attacker himself called the police even though they had already been informed about the shooting.

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According to a student's father, the shooter entered his daughter's classroom and started firing as her classmates and teacher were hiding under their desks. According to a local official, the majority of the students were able to escape through a back door.

Mass shootings are incredibly uncommon in Serbia and the wider Balkan region; no school shootings have been reported in recent years. In the most recent mass shooting, a veteran of the Balkan wars murdered 13 people in a village in the centre of Serbia in 2013.

However, experts have repeatedly expressed concern about the threat posed by the abundance of weapons in the nation as a result of the wars of the 1990s. They also point out that the ongoing economic hardship as well as decades of conflict-related instability could lead to outbursts.

Kosta Kecmanovic, a 13-year-old student at the Vladislav Ribnikar school, whose students typically range in age from 6 to 15, was named by police as the shooter.

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According to the police, Kecmanovic used his father's licenced handgun. According to Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic, the teen apparently knew the code to the safe where the gun was kept. He claimed the father had also been detained.

Milic claimed that the shooter also wrote out a list of children he intended to "liquidate" in the attack, which he planned for a month. Police showed reporters a sketch of a classroom that they claimed the shooter had drawn.

Six kids and a teacher were hospitalised in addition to the nine people who were killed.
The removal of Kecmanovic, whose head was covered as officers led him to a car, was captured on camera by local media. The streets around the school were cordoned off by police. Later, policemen delivered body bags to a waiting van.

On the first day that classes started up again following a long weekend for the May 1 holiday, police said they got a call about the shooting at around 8:40 a.m. "I could hear the gunshots. When gunfire broke out in another part of the building, a student who was taking a sports class described it as "nonstop." Because of her age, her mother requested that her name not be used. "I had no idea what was going on. On the phone, we were getting some messages. The pupil called the gunman a "quiet guy" with good grades. He wasn't always so honest with people. I certainly didn't anticipate this to occur," she said.

The majority of the students were led out of a back door of the school, according to Milan Nedeljkovic, the mayor of the Belgrade neighbourhood of Vracar where the shooting occurred.

We have video surveillance, but now that we've learned our lesson, metal detectors are also necessary, he said. "It is a terrible tragedy that this is happening in Belgrade. Such a tragedy at a school for young children.

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According to the hospital's director, one child and the teacher were both in critical condition when four students and a teacher were transported to University Hospital.

Milan Milosevic told N1 television that he hurried to the school as soon as he learned what had happened. He claimed that his daughter was in a history class when the shooting occurred. He got a call from his daughter, who had managed to escape the structure unharmed.