Minister of the Interior Davor Bozinovic said on Sunday that the police responded swiftly and efficiently to Saturday's shooting in the central Croatian town of Sisak, adding that Croatia is a safe country.

Early on Sunday morning, the police arrested a 58-year-old man who killed one and wounded several other persons in Sisak on Saturday evening. The man, a war veteran, shot dead a 45-year-old woman and wounded eight other people.

The perpetrator also set two residential buildings on fire. They burned down completely. One car that caught fire also burned down, while one more building and another car were damaged in the fire, a local police official said on Sunday.

Bozinovic stressed on Sunday that Croatia is a safe country. Incidents like this one cause alarm but the police are doing their job, he said.

He added that over the past five years, 10 fewer murders happen annually on average compared to previous years, noting that in 2022, 17 people were killed and this year it was 13.

Bozinovic said that “all statistics” show that Croatia is one of the safest countries in Europe and that the rate of resolved crimes has exceeded 70% over the past several years.

“What happens here happens also elsewhere in the world, this is a broader phenomenon that we all need to analyse,” he said.

He also said that the police were concerned that around 90-96% of verdicts for some 400 reports filed by the police over illegal possession of weapons against known perpetrators were conditional sentences.

“A month ago I wrote to the Supreme Court president pointing to this fact because that way we cannot achieve either general or special prevention,” said Bozinovic.

There is an unspecified number of illegally owned weapons in Croatia. For the past 10 years, the Interior Ministry has been conducting the “Farewell to arms” campaign during which more than 350,000 weapons, more than 6 million pieces of ammunition, and more than 6 tonnes of explosive were surrendered to the police.

So far this year, more than 2,200 weapons, more than 45,000 pieces of ammunition, and around 40 kilograms of explosive have been handed over to the police, the minister said.