AFP

A day of mourning will be held in the eastern Croatia town of Daruvar on Wednesday, officials said, following a mass shooting at a nursing home that left six dead and shocked the country.

Five residents and one employee were killed when the gunman entered the private nursing home on Monday morning and opened fire, with his own mother among the victims.

Shootings in Croatia are rare, with Monday’s incident among the worst in the former Yugoslav republic’s history since it declared independence in 1991.

Flags will be flown at half mast and social events will be curtailed Wednesday in respect for the victims, municipal authorities said, as President Zoran Milanovic called for greater arms control.

“We sympathise with the families of those tragically killed and hereby express our sincere condolences,” the authorities said.

Croatians across the country took to social media to express their anger and confusion, with the Vecernji List newspaper publishing a blacked-out front page that featured just one word: Daruvar.

The gunman was arrested after fleeing the scene, and police said Tuesday that he had been charged with 11 counts, including one of femicide, four aggravated murders and murder.

Local media reports confirmed that one of the victims was the alleged shooter’s mother.

Reports have said the suspect is a retired military police officer who fought in Croatia’s war of independence during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995.

“The 51-year-old suspect entered the premises of the nursing home where, with the intention of taking the lives of several people, he fired a gun,” a police statement said.

Local media reported that the suspect remained silent during questioning.

President Milanovic called the shooting “unprecedented in Croatia”.

“The man possessed illegal arms… that should have been taken away from him. It shows how implementation of the arms control law is important,” he said, as prosecutors ordered an investigation into how he was able to acquire the weapons.

Of the six injured in the shooting, four remain in hospital, according to Marina Major, who oversees a medical facility in nearby Pakrac.

The nursing home’s remaining 13 residents were transferred to another facility in Daruvar, officials said.

“We share the pain and grief with the families of the killed,” Marija Ivandekic, the daughter of the nursing home’s owner, told state-run broadcaster HRT.

Last year, neighbouring Serbia was rocked by back-to-back mass shootings, including a massacre at a school in the capital in Belgrade in which 10 people were killed.

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