Serbia: Protests in Novi Sad after deadly collapse

Thousands of demonstrators and broken windows: Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, which has been mourning since Friday 14 deaths in the collapse of a concrete canopy at the station, was angry Tuesday evening against the government accused of being responsible for this tragedy.

“I am here because a six-year-old girl will never be able to blow out the candles on her 7th birthday (…). That’s why it’s important, corruption kills,” Maja Gledic, 50, explains to AFP. “This little girl had a nine-year-old sister who won’t make it to ten candles either,” adds this saleswoman from the city, “how many more children must we lose for this to be the end?”

«Prison, prison!»

The two girls were under the concrete awning when it collapsed, killing 14 people and seriously injuring three others. The latter, aged 18 to 24, are still hospitalized. The station, a brutalist building built in the early 1960s, had been partly renovated in recent years.

An investigation was quickly opened and 48 people have already been interviewed, according to the latest press release from the Serbian authorities. Construction Minister Goran Vesic resigned on Tuesday morning – as requested by participants in the various rallies.

But for the demonstrators gathered Tuesday in Novi Sad, that is not enough. “You are guilty!” one of them launched from an improvised podium after a minute of silence in tribute to the victims. “Prison, prison!”, “Stop the criminals!”, we could read on the signs.

“Victims of the regime”

“These fourteen dead and three injured are, above all, victims of this regime and of everything that has happened in Serbia over the last twelve years. This misfortune did not come by itself. It is the product of arrogance and dishonor, of plunder by this State and by this power. Their criminal way of running the state has led to the death of people, like in the 1990s,” accuses Vladimir Gvozdenovic, a 60-year-old economist.

For him, as for his companions in the procession, the SNS, the right-wing nationalist party in power in Serbia, is guilty of negligence in monitoring public infrastructure construction projects which are multiplying across the country.

A little over an hour after the start of the demonstration, a few dozen demonstrators attacked the town hall building, breaking windows, throwing incendiary objects and spraying the walls with red.

The police, present in the building, responded by using pepper spray, while other demonstrators tried to intervene, shouting “don’t destroy our city!”, all in a very tense atmosphere. The scuffles lasted until around 10:30 p.m.

“The police are in restraint this evening”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic reacted in a video posted on Instagram in the evening: “My message [aux manifestants violents]; is that the police are being restrained this evening, not just because of them, but because of the respect we show to the victims of this terrible tragedy. But let Serbian citizens not think for a single second that violence is authorized. All those who took part in it will be punished.”

He also traveled to Novi Sad, where he lit a candle in front of the train station, then walked to his party’s local headquarters, followed by local television cameras. In the procession, before the gas and the clashes, Djordje Mitrovic, 30, summed up things like this: “We, the people, have been dissatisfied for a long time. We are not living well. And now we don’t even feel safe anymore.”

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