Thousands mark Statehood Day of Serbia with anticorruption protest

Thousands of Serbians blocked the main boulevard of the central city Kragujevac, the latest in a series of student-led protests over last November’s deadly collapse of a train station roof.

The increasing pressure being applied by the university student-led movement has already forced the resignation of several high-ranking officials, including Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, at the end of January.

Crowds gathered in the city centre at the start of Serbia’s statehood holiday, calling for greater government accountability and reforms.

Protesters filled the streets well into the afternoon on Saturday, waving flags marked with bloody handprints – the protests’ logo.

The Kragujevac blockade is the third daylong city demonstration after Belgrade and Novi Sad a few weeks ago.

The collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad in November last year, which killed 15 people, followed extensive renovations to the building in the northern city.

The deaths fuelled longstanding anger over corruption and demands for accountability.

At 10:52 GMT, the time of the tragedy, protesters observed 15 minutes of silence to honour the victims.

The blockade was planned to last past midnight, marking the anniversary of the enactment of the Serbian Constitution in 1835, making it one of the most progressive in Europe at the time.

President Aleksandar Vucic, at a rally in the northern town of Sremska Mitrovica, told thousands of supporters the country was being attacked from the outside, “helped by many inside who manipulate our children”.

He urged the protesters to engage in dialogue and to listen to him.

“Declare victory, you have had all your demands met, return to your benches,” he said.

The government has already tried to meet some of the students’ demands in a bid to quell the months-long protests.

The students in Kragujevac however are continuing to call for greater transparency.

In advance of the rally, hundreds of students from Novi Sad, Belgrade and the southern city of Nis staged a four-day march that converged on Friday night on Kragujevac’s centre.