Teacher wounded in Bosnia school shooting, child arrested

SARAJEVO Bosnia - A child was arrested after allegedly shooting a teacher at an elementary school in the northeastern Bosnian city of Lukavac on Wednesday, officials and the family of the victim said.

The incident comes a month after a 13-year-old gunned down 10 people -- including nine fellow classmates -- at an elementary school in neighbouring Serbia's capital Belgrade.

"The child, who is not yet 14, is under police supervision in the premises of the Lukavac Police Department, while firearms and other discarded items are secured until the investigation begins," the interior ministry of Tuzla canton said.

Local media reports described the suspect as a former student who had recently transferred to another school.

The wounded person is an English teacher who also worked as an assistant principal of the school, the father of the victim Ismet Osmanovic told local broadcaster N1.

"The operation is still ongoing. Doctors told me he was stable," said Osmanovic.

According to the hospital in the nearby city of Tuzla, the victim in the shooting had sustained "gunshot wounds to the neck".

"The patient was intubated and he is being operated on," the University Clinic Centre of Tuzla said in a statement, according to local media.

Gun ownership is high in Bosnia -- which suffered a brutal war in the 1990s that claimed some 100,000 lives.

According to the Small Arms Survey research group, approximately 31 out of every 100 citizens owns a gun in the Balkan nation - AFP