We're bringing our live coverage of this shocking day in Serbia to a close now, thanks for following the story with us.

For further updates about of the shooting in Belgrade take a look at our story here.

This live coverage was brought to you by Dulcie Lee, Ece Goksedef, Adam Durbin, Mattea Bubalo, Emily McGarvey, Aoife Walsh, Sam Hancock, Alex Therrien, Nathan Williams, Andrew Humphrey and Heather Sharp.

Guy Delauney
Balkans correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Prosecutors in Serbia have stated that the suspect in the school shooting in Belgrade may not face criminal charges, due to his age.

The age of criminal responsibility in Serbia is set at 14 years old. But the suspect is still two months shy of his 14th birthday.

Police will continue to investigate his involvement in the deaths of his classmates and a school security guard. But, as things stand, prosecutors will not be able to bring criminal charges.

It may be possible to hold the boy’s parents responsible. Both of them have already been taken into custody.

Police say that the father held permits for the two pistols which were found in the suspect’s possession at the time of his arrest. They are holding him on suspicion of committing serious offences against general security.

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, says the suspect will be transferred to a psychiatric facility. The boy is being assessed by social workers, who will check whether he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack.

A prosecutor has told Serbian media that actions after that will be carried out by the social work service.

Vučić also insists that it is “impossible for no one to be held accountable” for the shooting.

He suggests lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old – as well as a range of restrictions on gun ownership and use.

Image source, Reuters

If you're trying to get to grips with what has happened, or are just in need of a catch up, here's a quick summary of what we know about this morning's shooting in Serbia so far:

• A 13-year-old boy has been arrested after eight students and a security guard were killed at a school in Belgrade
• Another six pupils and a teacher were injured in the shooting, with some currently being treated in hospital
• Witnesses say the attacker walked into a history lesson, shot the teacher first and then fired at fellow students
• Police say the shooter planned the attack a month in advance and had drawn up a list of children to target
• The suspect is alleged to have used two guns owned by his father and according to Reuters both of his parents have also been arrested
• No motive has been given for the attacks, but Serbia's education minister has said he had previously been a victim of peer violence
• He is younger than the age of criminal responsibility in Serbia, which is 14 years old
• But he will be placed in a specialist psychiatric facility, President Aleksandar Vučić announced in a TV address
• Serbia's leader also said gun controls will be stepped up in the wake of the attack

• Three days of mourning are to be held from 5-7 May

Attacks like today don't happen very often in Serbia, which has very strict gun laws, but gun ownership in the country is among the highest in Europe.

The western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following wars in the 1990s in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo where ethnic Serbs fought other ethnic groups which together made up former federal Yugoslavia.

Tens of thousands of illegal firearms have since been handed over or registered in amnesties.

But there have been a few shooting incidents with multiple deaths in recent years:

• In July 2007, Nikola Radosavljevic killed nine people and wounded five in the eastern village of Jabukovac
• In 2013, Ljubisa Bogdanovic killed 14 people in the central village of Velika Ivanca in 2013

• In 2015, Rade Sefer killed six guests at his son's wedding in the northern town of Senta and was killed on the spot with a chair by another man
• In 2016, Sinisa Zlatic killed five people with an assault rifle in a cafe in the northern town of Zitiste before being arrested and convicted

As a comparison to Serbia, here is the minimum age of criminal responsibility in some other countries:

• Bosnia-Herzegovina - 14
• Finland - 15
• Germany - 14

• Ireland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - 10

• India - 7

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has requested that the age of criminal responsibility be lowered from 14 to 12 years old.

The suspect in the shooting is 13, which means that currently under Serbia's penal code he cannot be charged with a criminal office.

Speaking in a TV address earlier, Vučić also said the boy was being placed in a specialist psychiatric facility, according to Reuters.

This very rare attack at a school shocked has Serbia.

Parents ran to the school to make sure their children were safe while police cordoned the area.

Here are some images from Belgrade, where people have started to pay tribute to the victims.

Image source, AFP

Image source, ANDREJ CUKIC/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Image source, Reuters

A witness to the shooting has described the security guard who died as a "gentle" and "peaceful guy" who cared deeply about the safety of the children at the school.

Sarah El Sarag said she could not imagine "what was in the head" of the boy who shot him.

And Milan Nedeljkovic, president of Belgrade's Vracar district, told reporters the security guard, who has not been officially named, placed himself in the line of fire to protect other students.

"Probably the tragedy would be even bigger if the man did not stand in front of the boy who was shooting," he added.

El Sarag described a scene of distress in the aftermath of the shooting.

Gun controls in Serbia will be made more stringent following the shooting, the country's President Aleksandar Vučić has announced.

Speaking a little while ago in a TV address, he said there would be a moratorium on issuing licences for guns not to be used in hunting and a review of existing permits.

Vučić also said the monitoring of shooting ranges and how civilians store their weapons would be stepped up.

Adam Durbin
Live reporter

In 2019, it was estimated that there are 39.1 firearms per 100 people living in Serbia, the joint third highest in the world - alongside nearby Montenegro - and behind only the US and Yemen.

With an estimated population of 6.7 million, this equates to over 2.7 million guns in civilian hands in the Balkan nation - around 1.5 million of which are unregistered.

According to the data from the Small Arms Survey, external, this means Serbians proportionally own around eight times as many firearms as people in England, Wales and Scotland, and nearly four times as many as Northern Ireland.

But it's important to note the UK's gun ownership as a whole is amongst the lowest in Europe.

For example, France and Germany both have an estimated 19.6 firearms for every 100 residents, while more heavily armed Nordic nations like Finland and Norway have 32.4 and 28.8 respectively.

In the wider Balkan region, much of which was devastated by civil war in the 1990s following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the numbers per 100 people are:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina - 31.2
• Croatia - 13.7
• Kosovo - 23.8
• Montenegro - 39.1
• North Macedonia - 29.8
• Slovenia - 15.6

We'll bring you more from the president as soon as we have it, but in the meantime here's some more information about the country where the shooting took place, and the man who leads it.

Serbia has a population of 6.7 million and lies in south-eastern Europe, bordered by Romania and Bulgaria to the east, and Hungary to the north.

It was one of the six republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia - that made up the old Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia broke up during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Serbia became a stand-alone sovereign republic in the summer of 2006 after Montenegro voted in a referendum for independence from the Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

Aleksandar Vučić became prime minister after his pro-EU nationalist Progressive Party won a landslide victory in early parliamentary elections in March 2014. He was re-elected in April 2022.

In 2021, Amnesty International characterised his mandate as one of human rights violations, restrictions on freedom of expression and campaigns of harassment against the opposition figures, journalists and media outlets.

You can read more read more about Serbia's in the BBC's country profile.

Vučić's giving more detail about the shooter's arrest now.

"As of this moment the boy is in a special place and he will be placed in a special department of a psychiatric clinic," he's quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

President Vučić says the mother of the 13-year-old school shooter has also been arrested, according to Reuters, who we are relying on for a translation of the president's speech.

The boy's father was detained earlier on suspicion of aggravated endangering of public safety.

In a sombre delivery, President Vučić is providing more updates on the situation.

Image source, EBU

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić is delivering a speech following this morning's shooting.

Stay with us for the latest lines.

Guy Delauney
Balkans correspondent

Image source, EPA

Despite widespread ownership of weapons - a legacy of the Yugolsav era - gun crime is rare and school shootings are something that, until now, have only happened in other countries.

The suspected shooter is just 13 - and some of his victims were even younger. And the details being released by the Serbian authorities suggest this was a premeditated massacre, planned before the long weekend break to mark the Labour Day holidays.

Belgrade’s chief police officer, Veselin Milic, said the suspect called police himself after opening fire on his classmates at Vladislav Ribnikar school in the central Vracar district of the city.

He admitted that he had planned the attack, but did not divulge a motive. Milic said that a search of the boy’s desk had revealed “a list of children he planned to execute”, as well as details of how to enter and leave the school.The police chief compared the plan to something from “a video game or a horror film”.

This theme was reflected by Serbia’s education minister, Branko Ruzic. He blamed "the carcinogenic and deadly effect of internet and video games" as well as "so-called Western values".

We're hearing more about the arrest of the father of the 13-year-old suspect in the mass school shooting in Belgrade.

The schoolboy's father has been detained on suspicion of aggravated endangering of public safety, Serbian state media Tanjug is reporting, citing a statement by the prosecutor's office.

Earlier we reported that Serbia's interior minister, Bratislav Gašic, said the boy managed to get hold of two pistols and three magazines full of bullets.

The weapons are believed to belong to his father and had legal permits.

Guy Delauney
Balkans correspondent

Prosecutors in Serbia say that the suspect in the school shooting in Belgrade which left eight students and a security guard dead may not be held criminally responsible, because he is only 13 years old, not 14 as previously advised.

Under Serbia's Law on Juvenile Offenders and the Criminal Protection of Minors, children under the age of 14 cannot be held criminally responsible.

If you're just joining us or need a catch-up on what we know about this morning's shooting in Serbia, here's the key information we have so far:

• A 13-year-old boy has been arrested after eight students and a security guard were killed at a school in Belgrade
• Another six pupils and a teacher were injured in the attack and have been taken to hospital
• Witnesses say the suspect walked into a history class, first shot the teacher and then turned his weapon on his fellow students
• The suspect is alleged to have used two guns owned by his father - who has also been arrested
• Police say the attacker planned the shooting a month in advance with a list of children to target
• The education minister said he had previously been a victim of peer violence
• Three days of mourning are to be held in Serbia from 5-7 May

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić is due to speak about the attack later, and we'll bring you that and any other developments as soon as we have them.

Serbian officials have declared three days of mourning from Friday after eight students and a security guard were killed in a shooting at the school in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

Police cordoned off the area around the school as pupils, relatives and school staff comforted each other outside.

Here are some images from the scene:

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Guy Delauney
Balkans correspondent

Police in Serbia have arrested the father of the 14-year-old suspect in the mass shooting incident at a school in Belgrade.

They say that two pistols found on the suspect had legal permits.

Interior Minister Bratislav Gašic says the boy, who was a student at the school, "managed to get hold of those two guns and three magazines full of 15 bullets each".

Gašic says "legal measures will be taken against the father".