TRANSCRIPT
Six people are dead, and six others wounded in a mass shooting incident at a nursing home in Daruvar, Croatia, 125 kilometres south-east of the capital, Zagreb.
Nina Samot's mother was at the nursing home at the time of the shooting.
Nina doesn't know if she survived.
“Well, we have my mom here, she is 90. I am here with my brother and sister. We are waiting, we have no information. This is horrific what happened. This is such a small town. Especially when you have someone inside, I don't know, we are waiting, we are all in shock. The whole town is in shock.”
Antonio Demeter owns a bookstore across street from the care home.
“I was working as usual when I heard something that sounded like gunshots. I didn’t think something like this could happen. I thought someone was working when two employees of the care home ran into my store asking for help and protection. I called the police and emergency services. While I took care of the injured, the attacker went to the nearby bar. I told police that the suspect is in the bar and that they can intervene and prevent more possible incidents.”
Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic [[AHN-dray PLEN-koh-vich]] addressed the nation shortly after the attack.
“Well, we are shocked. It’s a monstrous act of murder of several people. Murder of his mother, then murder of the other older people. As far as I’ve seen, most of the victims were born around 1930’s. We're talking about people who are in their 90s. We of course condemn this crime.”
The prime minister says a large-scale investigation is underway.
“Minister Bozinovic, Minister Beros and Minister Piletic are heading to Daruvar and Pakrac, also police chief Milina. We have to see what led to such a monstrous crime of murder of older people, and why it happened. We had numerous hard situations before, but I can’t really remember any of such scale. That so many people got killed. When we get more info, the public will know. We are appauled by this horrific crime that happened in Daruvar.”
The shooter has been identified as Krešimir Pahoki, a 51-year-old former military policeman.
Marin Piletic is Croatia's Minister of Labour and Pension System, Family and Social Policy.
He says there was nothing to indicate that such an incident would take place.
“What we learned from the director of this care home is that there was never any problems reported between the assailant and his mother who was inside. That is what the manager, the owner of this home told us. Could this have been prevented? I don't think anyone in Croatia has an answer to this question.This is all about relations between a mother and her son. There was no possibility of stopping a son from visiting his mother at this nursing home. Simply because, according to the manager, there were no difficulties in that relationship. The manager told us that the son made rare visits to his mother, but we can’t make any further comments.”
As Croatia reels from this devastating attack, the focus now shifts to understanding how such a tragedy could unfold in a tight-knit community, and how to prevent it from happening again.
