Serbia's government is instituting an extensive revision of existing private gun permits and other measures as the Balkan country mourns the victims of a mass shooting -- its first ever at a school -- that has sent shock waves through the country.
As a three-day mourning period began, citizens and students continued to lay flowers, teddy bears, and light candles on May 4 in front of the Belgrade primary school where a 13-year-old is accused of shooting dead eight of his fellow students and a security guard.
Six students and a teacher wounded in the attack are being treated in hospital, with two of the students said to be in critical condition.
WATCH: Serbia announced checks on May 4 to verify that gun owners were storing their weapons and ammunition according to safety regulations, a day after the country's first-ever mass shooting at a school. People gathered at the site to pay their respects to the eight children and one adult who were killed.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Gun Checks In Serbia After Mass Shooting At School
The Interior Ministry, in a May 4 press release, announced extensive controls will be conducted "in order to determine whether owners keep weapons in accordance with current regulations, separate from ammunition, and locked in adequate cabinets and safes."
Extensive controls of guns were also proposed by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at a press briefing held on May 3, who called the situation one of the most difficult in Serbia's modern history.
Vucic also said he would propose to the government enforcing a two-year moratorium on issuing gun permits, except for hunting guns.
He also told reporters that the suspect, who is under Serbia's age of criminal responsibility, is in a psychiatric institution for an evaluation.
Authorities said the suspect, identified as Kosta Kecmanovic, was armed with two guns legally owned by his father.
The teenager's parents have been detained.
Belgrade police chief Veselin Milic told a news conference the suspect had planned the attack for a month, compiling a list of students he planned to kill while using a map of the school he had drawn up.
Milic identified the dead students as seven girls and one boy, born between 2009 and 2011.
Mass shootings are extremely rare in Serbia, which has strict gun ownership laws. But the Balkan country is awash in weapons left from the 1990s wars that are not registered.
Meanwhile, police detained a young man in Republika Srpska after he wrote on social media that he was preparing to commit an attack at a high school in the town of Bihac in the Bosnian Serb entity, local authorities told RFE/RL on May 4.
No further details were immediately available, but authorities announced they will hold a news conference later.