More than seven weeks after the fatal collapse of a train shed at a Serbian station, tens of thousands of people have again protested in the capital Belgrade, demanding that those responsible be punished. Police put the number of protesters at 29,000, but the "Archive of Rallies", an organization that tracks and evaluates demonstrations, said 100,000 people gathered in the Serbian capital.
The protest was directed against President Aleksandar Vucic, Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and the mayor of Novi Sad, where the incident took place. The rally, organized by students on "Slavia" Square, a normally busy roundabout, began with a 15-minute silence in memory of the victims of the incident. The banners read slogans such as "Blood is on your hands" and "Children's revolution".
The rally was one of the largest in this wave of protests, media reported. Among them were farmers, famous actors and people from other parts of the country. Smaller rallies were also held in other cities in Serbia.
President Vucic will not give up
Showing confidence, the Serbian president opened a section of a newly built highway in central Serbia on Sunday. Vucic said he would not give in to opposition demands for a transitional government and accused his opponents of using students to try to seize power. "We will defeat them again," Vucic said. "They don't know what to do except use someone else's children."
In an apparent attempt to dispel the student-led protests, Vucic has been promoting what he says are "affordable" loans for young people to buy homes, as well as attracting tens of thousands of doctors and other qualified people who have left the Balkan country in recent years in search of a better life in the West.
However, another scandal has rocked Serbia in recent days - a report by "Amnesty International" accused the country's authorities of installing spyware on the mobile devices of journalists, activists and critics of the government in order to monitor them.
Critics accuse the authorities of negligence and corruption
On November 1, the canopy of the newly renovated central railway station in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad collapsed. Fifteen people were killed and dozens more were injured. The station renovation was part of a new railway line from Belgrade to Budapest in Hungary, which was being built by Chinese companies.
After the incident, the prosecutor's office in Novi Sad opened an investigation and ordered provisional arrests, but did not name any suspects. Critics of President Vučić's government and experts have suggested that the roof collapse was due to negligence and corruption. After major demonstrations in Novi Sad and Belgrade, Serbian students took action. They occupied 50 faculties at four of the country's largest universities. They were later joined by high school students who occupied the schools. They have continued to this day.
Mina Kirkova