A car bomb exploded in front of the house of the Montenegrin investigative journalist Sead Sadikovic in the northern town of Bijelo Polje on Sunday night according to media reports. The explosion damaged the car but did not cause any injuries. The Montenegrin Union of Journalists had alerted the authorities to threats against Sadikovic as a result of his work.
The bomb blast in front of the house of Sadikovic was the seventh bombing in Montenegro since the beginning of the year and came just hours after a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the security situation in the Adriatic state, which has deteriorated as a result of growing conflicts among organised criminal groups in recent months.
In a separate attack, two people were shot dead last Saturday in the central Independence square in Podgorica. One of the people killed was an innocent bystander.
Media reports speculate that this is a settling of accounts between gangs dedicated to drug trafficking, but there are no official confirmation as to the motive.
The worst of the violence has been occurring in the coastal city of Kotor, where according to media reports more than 30 people have died since 2013. The Minister of the Interior of neighboring Serbia, Nebojsa Stefanovic, said on Sunday that his country would not allow “the importation of settlements among criminal groups from Montenegro” on Serbian soil. Serbian media had previously reported that the recent wave of bombings in that country last year was linked to feuds among Montenegrin criminals operating in Serbia.
