On New Year’s Day, 2025, in Cetinje, a small, historic mountain city in Montenegro, the Balkans, a gunman killed 13 people, including 2 children.
Forty-Five year old Aco Martinovic was killed the owner of the bar, as well as the owner’s family and children, before opening fire on three more locations.
He fled the scene in a vehicle, and later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a police stand off. The country of Montenegro declared 3 days of official mourning following the event.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said the shooting had "shrouded our country in black".
While a violent shooting with such a high death toll may seem like an anomaly, the 2025 New Year’s Day shooting marked the second mass shooting in the town of Cetinje since August 2022, in an incident where another gunman killed 10 people, including children, before being shot dead by police.
Vesna Pejovic, a resident whose daughter and grandchildren were killed in the 2022 shooting stated, “We had to relive all our horrors all over again.”
Pejovic has been lobbying politicians for the past 3 years to enact stricter gun control laws in her home country of Montenegro. "Acquiring a firearm here is akin to buying bread in a shop," Pejovic said.
Systemic Issue, Gun Violence in the Balkans
The town of Cetinje is not an isolated example either.
Balkan countries have some of the highest rates of gun violence and gun violence related deaths in Europe, with Montenegro, Albania and Bosnia leading the way, and Serbia, North Macedonia and Croatia close behind.
According to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, death rates from gun crime in the Western Balkans are 30% higher than those in the largest EU countries.
In May 2023, near Belgrade, in Serbia, a gunman used an automatic weapon to kill 9 people and injure 12 others, an attack that followed a school shooting in Belgrade the previous day, which resulted in 10 deaths.
These shocking incidents lead to widespread protests and repeated calls for crackdowns on illegal weapons in the region.
Inter and Intra (Ethnic) Conflicts
Such incidents can be seen as a legacy of interethnic conflict and ongoing violence in the Balkan region.
The Balkans have been a site of conflict for over a century, and such conflicts, particularly the Yugoslav Wars (1991-1995) have deeply shaped cultural attitudes in the region.
Guns are regularly perceived as a means of expressing masculinity, whilst being a important tool for self defence during times of conflict.
Gun ownership has become an important element of Balkan culture as a direct result of such regional and ethnic conflicts. Many of the weapons from the era of the Yugoslav Wars have remained in circulation, as citizens kept their firearms after the end of the conflict.
Arms in Circulation
A recent report from the Switzerland based group Small Arms Survey estimates that the ethnic conflicts after the breakup of Yugoslavia left 6 million surplus firearms in circulation, with only half of these having been collected or destroyed. In Montenegro alone, it is estimated that up to 100,000 weapons are still in circulation.
After the latest tragedy in Montenegro, the Prime Minister Milojko Spajic announced stricter gun control measures, including giving illegal gun owners 2 months to hand over unregistered weapons.
However, limited success of similar measures in other Balkan countries draws into question the effectiveness of such a scheme.
Neighbouring Bosnia and Serbia have had similar programmes in past years, in efforts to combat gun violence.
In Serbia, in the wake of the 2023 mass shootings, citizens handed over 82,000 weapons, over 4 million rounds of ammunition and around 26,000 pieces of explosive ordnance. These programmes had some measurable successes in the region, but the problems of illicit weapons and smuggling continue.
One thing is certain; until Balkan governments can effectively address and regulate gun ownership, the entire region will continue to bear this legacy of violence.
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