weapons (Beta/Milos Miskov)
In less than two months, the citizens of Serbia have surrendered to police 100,538 unregistered weapons, Bojana Otovic Pjanovic, a representative of the Interior Ministry, said on June 27.
A quarter of the arms gathered – 25,720 pieces – comprised various explosives, including highly destructive ones.
“People even had loaded ‘Zolja’ hand-held grenade launchers in their homes. There was also a case where over four kilograms of explosives were attached to one fuse,” Otovic Pjanovic told Pink TV, adding that nearly four million bullets were also collected.
She explained that the voluntary surrender program – which guarantees owners impunity and no questions regarding origin – has managed to gather far more illegal weapons than any such previous effort.
Otovic Pjanovic further said that a significant number of registered weapons were handed over in the first few days of the program, which was launched on May 8, in the wake of two mass shootings in Mladenovac and Belgrade. She believes that those events caused many legal owners to re-evaluate whether they really needed a weapon in the house.
The program closes on June 30.
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