One Wednesday, Dragan Vlahović woke up early in his family home in the Belgrade neighborhood of Višnjička banja, packed his backpack and took public transport to work at the "Vladislav Ribnikar" Primary School in Vračar.
It was May 3, 2023, a day that looked like any other day in the previous ten years since he had been employed there.
He left things at his workplace, at the main entrance to the school, where he kept, as if in a vault, self-adhesive thumbnails for albums to exchange with the children, and new exercise books to hand out to those who would forget.
There was also a bunch of keys to different apartments that the students' parents entrusted to him for safekeeping.
As he did every morning, the fifty-three-year-old security guard put on a dark uniform with a badge and a red and black tie that he never liked.
Before the bell rang for the start of the first class, he passed by the wooden desk for students on duty and went outside the building to light a cigarette, in a place where many neighbors saw and greeted him every morning.
On the same morning, Ana Božović, Sofija Negić, Mara Anđelković, Andrija Čikić, Bojana Asović, Angelina Aćimović, Ema Kobiljski, Katarina Martinović and Adriana Dukić entered the school.
It was their last school morning.
In an unprecedented crime, a little before 9 am, a 13-year-old student killed a guard and nine students, injuring five more students and a history teacher, the prosecution's investigation found.
Five months later, charges were brought against the boy's parents.
The prosecution is asking for a prison sentence of 12 years for the father, who is in custody, and two and a half years for the mother, because the student, their son, is younger than 14 years old and, according to existing regulations, is not criminally responsible regardless of the crime committed.
It is not yet known when the trial of the parents will begin.
- Divisions, tears and one guitar: The tragedy at the "Vladislav Ribnikar" school from the parents' point of view, one month later
- Remembrance of the victims from the Belgrade school "Vladislav Ribnikar"
- The tragedy in Belgrade, a day later: Tears, toys, the message "Talk to the children" and silence in front of the school
'They are all my children'
In the following days, thousands of people came in front of the school to light candles, leave flowers - mostly white calla lilies, teddy bears and toys, and massive street protests followed.
Almost on the same day, a drawing of Dragan appeared in uniform, with a red and black tie, the badge of the Partizan Football Club and a red cape of a superhero.
"That was the answer of the children, of his world, that's that love," says Dragan's sister Radica Vlahović Jovičić quietly.
She knew, she says, how much everyone in the family loved him, why "Miki", as they called him at home, was a favorite grandfather and uncle.
But she only realized after the crime that every story about her five-year-younger brother started and ended with the same testimony, she told the BBC in Serbian.
"Dragan, Dragan, as they called him at school, he loved children and the children loved him."
"Dragan didn't have his own children, but whenever we talked about it, he told me: 'Dado, I have many more children than you can imagine,' and then he would tell the exact number of students who go to school.
"When my sister or I shout at the children, he tells us, 'Let them go, children are as golden as their parents,'" says Radica, with a slight smile.
When Dragan got a job in September 2013 at Elementary school "Vladislav Ribnikar", which has more than 1.000 pupils distributed in 42 classes, he had only one concern.
He was a little tense, because he was afraid if he would be able to remember the names of all the children and parents.
"Very quickly, he knew every child by name and every child next to him felt that he was special," says Radica.
Dragan didn't talk much to the school, one of the special features of which is the teaching of the French language, which is taught six hours a week from the first grade, and part of the seventh and eighth grades also has bilingual classes.
In the last six months, Radica found out that Dragan knew how to run out of the workplace and take the child out of the car to school, to carry a heavy school backpack, to call the parents if the student goes out into the yard without a jacket, and "it's blowing outside".
After the competition at the weekend, he knew which of the students he should congratulate on Monday.
"One father told me: 'If I had to leave the country, Dragan was the man I would entrust my family to.'"
That Dragan was much more than a guard was also seen in the photo posted on social networks after his death, in which he carries the boy in his arms up the stairs.
"Uncle Dragan Vlahović carries my Vukašin from office to office when he broke his leg so he wouldn't miss classes, at a time when they only returned to their desks after corona, fifth grade," it was written next to the picture.
Football and Partizan in the heart
Dragan was the youngest child in the family, besides two older sisters, born in 1970 in Pristina, "due to the great desire of his parents to have a son".
He played football, always with the elders, came home with bruises and ran outside again.
In the 1980s, the family moved to Belgrade, where Dragan also lived with short interruptions during his time in the army and in the early 1990s, when he returned to his hometown for a few years.
Radica says that everyone adored him and describes him as a man who is "always ready for a joke, full of cheerful spirit, calm, composed, with a big heart, nervous only when Partizan loses".
"He welcomed children at school enrollment. His first question was always 'Who do you support?' If the child says: 'Partisan', he answers 'Throw the dice'. If he says Zvezda, he replies: 'Come on, I'll ask you again in two months, you'll be my ardent fan,'" he says with a smile.
Before he started working at the school, Dragan was employed in embassies security.
"We were relieved when he transferred to the school. It doesn't matter to you, he works at night, spends time in that little house on the street. Here we believed he was safe, surrounded by children," says Radica.
While showing a photo of Dragan surrounded by the martyred children, Radica, dressed in black, puts glasses on the chosen face, and describes them all with pride, as if she has always known them.
"Sofia a physicist, Katarina a ballerina, Mara a painter and sculptor, Ema an ambidextrous, Ana loved to dance, Andrija a pianist, Angelina, Adriana and Bojana, each with their own special features.
"Dragan knew that. They were our future."
Who were the victimized children?
Mara Anđelković VII-2
A karateka with a blue belt, mature, smart, a true friend, she drew and sculpted.
In a written assignment from 2022, which her father Branko handed over to the BBC, Mara wrote that their department was ready to accept new friends, and that they resolved disagreements nicely.
"This is our last year when we are all together as a class.
"Although life constantly opens new windows with new opportunities, while others close with some success, it is nice to know that we are still there for each other."
She wanted to enter the School of Design and study at the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Mara's best friend from the class was Andrija Čikić.
Andrija Čikić VII-2
Interest in music he showed from his earliest childhood.
He played the piano from the age of six, but he also liked karting, foreign languages, mathematics, tennis and socializing.
At the age of 13, he wrote a composition Emotions, and the teacher at the music school described him as "a small, big, Renaissance man".
"Andrija was a cheerful child. Unique, special, interested in everything, loved to explore.
"He was able to give and receive love, from the love we had in the family, we are living now," his mother Suzana Čikić told RTS.
He was a fighter for justice, a protector of the younger and weaker, his parents wrote in a biography provided to the BBC.
A multiple awardee, he performed at several concerts and participated in international competitions.
He was a student of the generation of the Music School "Stanislav Binički" and at the age of 13 attended the first grade of the High School of Music "Josip Slavenski".
His dream was to play at Carnegie Hall.
"When he was 10 years old, he asked me: ``Mom, but if I really play at Carnegie Hall one day, will you come?'' I said, of course, I will swim across the Atlantic," Čikić said.
Kolarč's endowment announced an invitation to participate in the memorial competition for the best young composers "Andrija Čikić" in his memory.
His great musical talent was also talked about by the world's greatest musicians, such as Placida Domingo i Stjepan Hauser.
Ema Kobiljski VII-2
The daughter of Nina and Dragan Kobiljski, volleyball coach and former player, was born on October 3, 2009.
She wanted a big party for her 14th birthday.
She wanted to go to France, to the sea and to Nušićijad in Ivanjica.
Left-handed, clumsy in writing, she sometimes mixed Latin and Cyrillic, realizing that the essence, what was written, was more important, he announced Public service.
She was an excellent student, but she also questioned the limits of what was (not) allowed, with disarming honesty, cheerful spirit and humor.
And contagious laughter.
She was remembered and by courage, because she tried to stop a peer during the shooting.
Katarina Martinović VII-2
A tender and brave ballerina, whose life was dancing on her toes, she was at the same time firm and steadfast.
"Kaya loved the pink and white color of tulips, flowers that always keep their delicate heads pointed towards the sky.
"Proud and dignified like Kaya, fragile and strong at the same time. She brought energy to the class, motivated them all, kept them together, cheered them on when they were having a hard time," wrote the Lujo Davicho ballet school, dedicating an issue of the magazine to her. Step.
Adriana Dukić VII-2
The brown-haired girl lived in France until last year, when they got married returned to Serbia as a family.
She wanted to study biology in France, and was a native French speaker.
She loved dancing, singing, drawing and folklore.
Her closest friend was Angelina Aćimović, a girl who succumbed to her injuries in the hospital 12 days after the murder.
Angelina Acimović VII-2
She had a great love for art and fashion.
She loved to cook, especially sweets, and she solved math problems with ease.
She also did handwork and made gloves that she gave to her friends.
"With astonishing ease, you were able to bring a smile to the face of each of us, to accomplish magical works with your hands, to solve tasks as if it were a joke, to dance like a butterfly, to resolutely fight for justice everywhere and always, to be a role model for everyone with your example to us, that you fulfill all your promises, and even give cookies when you get a four, because it was monotonous to see only fives at school," they wrote to her family members.
Ana Božović V-2
A hip-hop girl with a "strong and good character", she was the first child to climb a tree if someone lost a ball.
She practiced taekwondo, could stand on her head and lived surrounded by the love of her brother and parents.
"I constantly felt the need to tell her: 'God, Ana, how much I love you and how grateful I am to have you,' and I constantly teased her: 'You know what, Ana, if I saw you in the park, and if you weren't mine, I would say : Because you're not mine'...", her mother Ninela Radičević told, for First Tv.
On the fateful day, she was on duty at the main entrance, waiting for her dad to bring her food from McDonald's, Ivan Božović told HRT.
Bojana Asović V-2
Creative and caring, she knew how to make those closest to her happy with her drawings.
Her favorite subject was French, and her interests were varied, she practiced gymnastics.
"Your beautiful smile and the joy you conveyed to us will forever be in our thoughts.
"All your photos and videos from your birthday and travels, surrounded by friends and family, will be a memory of the life we led while you were a part of it," said a family friend during the last farewell. Mladen Ćetković.
Sofija Negić VII-4
She loved music, especially The Beatles and Motörhead.
She enjoyed drawing, video games, such as Minecraft, and cards.
She dyed her hair strands green.
She had a talent for chemistry, mathematics and physics and prepared for competitions.
"She had a kind of gentleness in her soul, a talent to make everyone around her feel good, she never offended anyone, even if someone hurt her, she didn't experience it personally, and she was quick to forgive... she never got angry with anyone... except for her curly hair," her mother wrote Milanka Negić in a letter in September, RTS reported.
She wanted to enroll in the Fifth Gymnasium, because they have it there Lenondan - a day dedicated to John Lennon from the Beatles.
For Sofia's 14th birthday, lanterns were released from Belgrade's Youth Stadium.
The third of May
The man, whom the children later drew as an angel, was beaming with happiness a few weeks before the murder, and no one knew why, says his sister Radica.
After the May Day holidays, the guard Dragan went to work as he had attended his sister's birthday the previous evening.
"I was alone at home with my parents that morning, the TV was on and at one point I heard that a massacre had taken place in the elementary school in Vračar.
"At no point did I connect that it was his school. It is in my head that his school is in Savski Venec".
When her son told her that it was her uncle's school, she started calling, first her brother, and then his friends, but no one answered.
"At one point, I got the MUP Vračar.
"When I explained to them who I am and that my brother works as a security guard at the school, they asked me, 'Are you home alone?' That was the end, I knew."
Watch the video: The day Belgrade fell silent
On May 3, the boy KK entered the school armed with his father's gun and 92 bullets, and immediately at the entrance killed Dragan Vlahović, and then three more girls, the Prosecution announced.
In the history room, where there were 23 students from class VII/2, a teacher and a student on internship, he killed six children, while he wounded the teacher and five other classmates.
Then he called the police himself and told what he had done.
The massacre, which, as Radica says, no normal person could even imagine, for a moment silenced the whole of Belgrade.
But the families did not hear her "because of the wailing, whining, running from cemetery to cemetery".
The crime in the elementary school, as well as the multiple murder of young people in Mladenovac two days later, triggered the "Serbia against violence" protests, the most massive in Belgrade in recent decades.
In the beginning, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets every Sunday, walking in silence, and paying their respects to those killed.
That walk in silence, without banners, made sense for a while, believes Radica.
"After that, there was an incredible noise in the head, around us," he says, waving his hand, as if he wanted to disperse all the voices that could be heard.
Those voices didn't just defend or blame the government for the crime, but they had different views on classes in Ribnikar in the future and the fate of the building.
While some parents believed that children should not be returned to the scene of the crime, and that the school, as it was, should no longer exist, others were in favor of the continuation of lectures.
"The struggle to continue the school quickly began and the repetition of `life goes on', `good must change evil', `one must live'.
"You have to live, that's true, but you don't have to in that school - a school is not made up of walls, tables, halls, a school is made up of children and teachers.
"And all that just shows how unaware we are of what happened and what the consequences are," says Radica, who rarely passes the street where "Vladislav Ribnikar" is.
There is a division when talking about the establishment of a memorial center in the school.
"Our families don't need a memorial center, we have our own piece of land and two by two monuments to remember our children and Dragan.
"This society needs a memorial center so that it doesn't forget this crime, because that's the only way it can prevent it from happening again," says Radica.
This technology engineer worked in management positions, and that is why she believes that the resignation of the entire school administration was "the least that could be done" to show responsibility, regardless of the law.
The Minister of Education Branko Ružić resigned, and later the director of the school was also dismissed, following the recommendation of the educational inspection.
Like some of the parents of the murdered children, Radica also believes that everything had to stop on May 3.
"If it had stopped, if we had found a way to be together in silence, if the Day of Mourning had started on May 3, would we have had May 4 and the crime near Mladenovac?", she asks.
Three days of mourning were declared in Serbia, two days after the murder.
"If we had answered in a different way, would Niška Banja have happened to us, when a 13-year-old boy killed a friend?"
Since the suspected boy has not reached the age of 14, he is not criminally responsible, it was announced on October 9. Niš Prosecutor's Office.
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Hero and guardian angel
In order to achieve unity and major changes in society, it is necessary to highlight virtues and true values, Radica believes.
That's why she brought to the BBC newsroom a folder with pictures and messages of support that they received, and on one of them, next to Dragan's photo with the children, it says `guardian angel'.
While stroking her brother's picture with her hand, she lit up, but her eyes also quickly glazed over.
"Our dear uncle Dragan, hI wish you a beautiful childhood, jokes, hugs, borrowed money for snacks and laughter...", it says in another message.
The third message reads: “Know... that all of us, because you exist, could call the school a second home, and you a family... We will grow up to be greater people, following your example. I hereby promise to follow your example because the world needs heroes like thebes".
Radical's message offers some comfort.
Her brother and she were not only "tied" as a family - in the house in Višnjička Banja, with a yard always full of people, lived her family, Dragan and parents - all separately, yet together.
Dragan and she had a ritual every day.
When he comes back from work, around XNUMX:XNUMX in the evening, they drink coffee, but espresso, because Dragan used to say that he couldn't sleep because of the homework.
Both are passionate smokers, but he also had a ``rack'' of cigarettes, from which Radica could "borrow".
The open deck, he says, is still in his room and will remain so.
"It's been six months, and for me it's an eternity without hugs, support, our coffee."
Dragan is a son who is survived by his 85-year-old father and mother; a brother who was adored by two older sisters, a grandfather who knew how to play like none of the adults in the family, an uncle who took his nieces and nephews to games.
This ardent fan of Partizan, with whose scarf he was buried, was also a friend without whom no celebration could pass.
Along with the anthem of the Belgrade club, his favorite song was "Tell me, Gypsy"
Partizan is paid tribute loyal fan at one of the matches and Radica hopes that "that made him happy".
The families are left to fight, "but not for justice," he says.
"I know that we will not get justice. No one will be held accountable for this crime. Rather... that this never happens again."
10 cedar trees were planted in front of the school in memory of all the children who died and the guard.
In the Small Tašmajdan Park, Japanese cherry trees were symbolically planted - trees that bloom in May.
"In the beginning, I hoped, now I know, that Dragan is surrounded by children and is watching over them.
"Our families have now become friends, for every birthday we plant a tree on Taša, it gives me strength and the will to continue," says Radica quietly.
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