Paraćin massacre

The Paraćin massacre (Serbo-Croatian: Paraćinski masakr / Параћински масакр) was a mass shooting which targeted Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) soldiers in the military barracks in Paraćin, Yugoslavia on 3 September 1987. The perpetrator was Aziz Kelmendi, a 20-year-old Kosovo Albanian conscript. Kelmendi fired an automatic weapon into two sleeping rooms before he fled and committed suicide. The shootings left four soldiers killed and five wounded.

Aziz Kelmendi (Serbian: Азиз Кељменди/Aziz Keljmendi; born 15 January 1967 in Lipljan, SFR Yugoslavia) was a Kosovo Albanian conscript in the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). Yugoslav authorities described him as a "misfit and loner". Prior to his military service, he was arrested and imprisoned from 2–17 April 1984 for allegedly attempting to leave Yugoslavia and go to Albania. At his trial hearing he reportedly said "Albania is my country, not Yugoslavia. I want to go there and live and fight for our goals!". His conviction included also for nationalistic behaviour at high school and university. He disliked learning Serbo-Croatian. Prior to the killings, he had two arguments with a soldier named Safet Dudaković.

On 3 September 1987, Kelmendi's mother and father came to Paraćin to visit their son. That morning, Kelmendi broke into a firearm cabinet and stole ten 7.62 mm bullets. He loaded these into his military-issued automatic weapon and went from the living facilities to a guard post. According to the JNA inquiry, Kelmendi threatened to kill the watchman, corporal Riza Alibašić, and took two rounds of ammunition from him. Pointing his weapon at Alibašić, Kelmendi took the corporal back to the living facility and demanded to know where Dudaković slept. When Alibašić refused to answer, Kelmendi told him to step aside and went into the sleeping quarters. There, he shot and killed the sleeping Dudaković before killing Srđan Simić and Goran Begić and wounding two other soldiers. He went into the adjacent sleeping quarters and fired randomly at the soldiers there, killing Hasim Dženanović and wounding two others. Kelmendi then fled the barracks. He was found dead 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) away and his death was later declared a suicide. A total of four soldiers were killed and five were wounded in the shooting. Two of those killed were Bosniaks, one was a Serb, and one was half-Slovene and half-Croat.