A man shot dead 12 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro before dying from self-inflicted injuries early on Thursday, authorities said, in one of the tiny Balkan nation’s worst mass killings.

The attacker, named by police as 45-year-old Aleksandar Aco Martinovic, initially killed four people when he opened fire after a brawl at a restaurant in Cetinje on Wednesday afternoon.

He then shot dead eight people, including two children, at three other locations, prosecutor Andrijana Nastic said.

The victims had close links to the gunman, police said. “All the victims were his godfathers, friends… the motive is still unknown,” national police director Lazar Scepanovic said.

It was the second shooting in less than three years in the same town 38 km (24 miles) west of the capital Podgorica. In August, 2022 a gunman killed 10 people, including two children, before he was shot dead.

Martinovic was cornered by officers near his home in the town and tried to kill himself, then died of his wounds on the way to hospital in the early hours of Thursday, Interior Minister Danilo Saranovic said.

“When he saw that he was in a hopeless situation, he attempted suicide. He did not succumb to his injuries on the spot, but during the transport to hospital,” Saranovic told Montenegro’s state broadcaster, RTCG.