A "traffic misunderstanding" on the streets of the capital of North Macedonia ended with one dead and two injured after a shootout in the Cair municipality in Skopje, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of North Macedonia announced, BTA reported.
Shortly before midnight, the Ministry of Internal Affairs received a signal of shooting in a parking lot, and 15 minutes later, the city hospital "St. Naum Ohridski" reported that two men with gunshot wounds were brought to the hospital. One of them, aged 35, with two gunshot wounds, died, and the other, of the same age, shot in two places, is out of danger.
A total of four people have been arrested, who according to the police were involved in the shooting. One, aged 39, was arrested at the "Mother Teresa" hospital. A 22-year-old man also sought medical help there, who then left the hospital, but was found and arrested, as well as two other people, aged 28 and 41.
“Two guns, several cars and other items related to the crime were found in the parking lot (where the shooting took place),“ the police reported. There are also traces of the shooting on the cars, and the prosecutor's office in Skopje added that shell casings were found at the scene of the incident.
The Ministry of Interior did not specify the reason for the "misunderstanding" during traffic on the streets of Skopje, but another statement said that from the checks carried out under the Road Traffic Safety Act on Monday alone, there were 909 registered violations in the country. The most (270) were related to speeding, 222 were for improper parking, 73 were driving without a driver's license, 10 were driving a car while intoxicated, 14 cars were unregistered, and 15 were without a technical inspection. The Ministry of Interior announced that the intensified checks related to traffic safety will continue. The topic became particularly sensitive after a 22-year-old student was killed on a pedestrian crossing on a central boulevard in Skopje at the end of December by a car that ran a red light and was driven by a drunk and unlicensed young man, which caused widespread repercussions throughout the country.
In the checks that the police have carried out over the past five days, every second driver checked in Skopje was found to be in some kind of violation of the law, said the Minister of Interior of North Macedonia, Pance Toshkovski, in an interview.