The search is now on for millions of illegal guns The breakup of Yugoslavia left six million surplus firearms in the Western Balkans, a region comprising Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and North Macedonia.
The breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s triggered a series of bloody ethnic conflicts that left 6 million surplus firearms in the Western Balkans, a region comprising Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and North Macedonia.
In Montenegro, up to 100,000 illegal weapons are estimated to still be in circulation, according to Djordjije Vukicevic, vice president of the Independent Police Union of Montenegro.
But the limited impact of previous gun control measures in the Western Balkans highlights just how hard it is to eradicate violence across a region littered with millions of firearms left over from regional conflicts, and where the culture of weapon ownership runs centuries deep.
Vesna Pejovic vowed to reduce gun violence in Montenegro after her daughter and two grandsons were killed in a mass shooting in the town of Cetinje in 2022.
