Three staff members of a high school in Sanski Most, western Bosnia, lost their lives when another school employee opened fire on them before attempting to take his own life, according to police.
A spokesman for the Una-Sana Canton police, Adnan Beganovic, stated that the authorities were alerted at 10:15 a.m. (0815 GMT) about the shooting.
Beganovic said the suspect, who was armed with an automatic rifle, fatally shot the school’s dean, the secretary and a teacher.
“He tried to commit suicide and was gravely injured,” Beganovic said.
The suspect was subsequently transferred for emergency treatment in the nearby town of Banja Luka while investigation into the incident is currently underway.
The school was still closed for the summer holidays at the time of the shooting, ensuring that no students were present or involved.
A local station, N1 TV, citing witnesses, reported that the shooter was a janitor with a history of disagreements with the school’s management and was under disciplinary proceedings.
According to the report, the janitor targeted specific individuals during the attack. However, Reuters was unable to independently verify this information.
Mass shootings are relatively rare in the Western Balkans, a region still grappling with the remnants of weapons from the wars of the 1990s.
In a recent incident in July, a war veteran in neighbouring Croatia shot and killed five people, including his mother, in a nursing home and wounded six other persons.
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