Serbian Education Minister Branko Ruzic resigned on Sunday just days after a 13-year-old student at a Belgrade school shot eight of his classmates and a guard to death and wounded seven others.
This tragedy, which shook the Balkan country on May 3, was followed the next day with another shooting perpetrated by a 21-year-old, who shot eight people dead and injured 14, mostly also adolescents and young people.
In the “irrevocable” resignation letter that he presented to Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, the minister states that he offered his resignation the same day the “cataclysmic tragedy” occurred, local broadcasters reported today.
Ruzic assures that “he will carry for life, like a seal on his soul, the dramatic images of the events at the school, the tears shed when expressing condolences to the heartbroken parents of the victims.”
Thousands of citizens called for Ruzic’s resignation as they gathered outside Belgrade’s Vladislav Ribnikar primary school after the tragedy, outraged that he blamed the crime on “Western values”.
“Serbia, unfortunately, is part of that world where these kinds of things happen more and more frequently. The carcinogenic, fatal influence of the Internet, of video games, of so-called Western values is evident, and it is clear that a great change of course is necessary,” Ruzic said after the school massacre.
The opposition and independent media accused him of taking advantage of the tragedy without mercy towards the victims to promote his anti-Western positions. The pro-Western opposition has announced a protest in front of Parliament in Belgrade for this Monday under the slogan “Serbia against violence” to demand the resignation of several ministers among other demands.
