Five dead, 22 injured in Serbia cafe shooting, officials say

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A man has shot dead five people, including his wife, and injured another 22 in a cafe in northern Serbia, police said.

The incident happened about 1:40am on Saturday (local time) in the town of Zitiste, around 80 kilometres north of Belgrade.

“[The man] entered the cafe and opened fire with an automatic rifle, killing his wife and another woman, then he continued to shoot at other citizens in the cafe,” a police statement read.

Police arrested the man named only by his initials ZS, and opened a probe into the shooting.

Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic visited the scene and was quoted by the local N1 television channel as saying the weapon was illegal.

He told Belgrade's B92 TV that ZS killed his estranged wife and a another woman, before firing at others in the cafe with an assault rifle.

Mr Stefanovic also said jealousy was believed to be the motive.

“He was a quiet man; he had no criminal record,” he said.

Gordana Kozlovacki, the director of the hospital in the nearby town of Zrenjanin, said 22 people were treated after the shooting.

Seven remained in a serious condition.

Serbia and most of the western Balkans are awash with hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons following wars and unrest in the 1990s.

In a bid to reduce the number, Serbian police on Friday offered an amnesty over surrendering or registering illegal weapons until November.

Saturday's killings follow a number of mass shootings in Serbia in recent years.

Three years ago, 13 people died in a shooting spree in a village near Belgrade, and last year six people were killed in a dispute over a wedding in Serbia's north.