Residents in northern Serbia stopped traffic and stood in silence to commemorate the 14 victims of a railway roof collapse two weeks ago and demand accountability for the tragedy.
Dozens of protesters on Friday held a large black banner and blocked crossroads outside the central railway station in the city of Novi Sad, where the building’s outer roof suddenly crashed down on November 1, killing 14 people and injuring three.
Many in Serbia blamed the accident on rampant corruption that they said led to sloppy work on the station building renovation.
The 60-year-old building was renovated twice in recent years and inaugurated by the Balkan nation’s top officials.
Authorities have promised a thorough investigation and the Serbian government’s construction minister has submitted his resignation.
But there have been no arrests and critics have accused the populist authorities of avoiding responsibility.
Thousands have attended protests in both Novi Sad and Belgrade in the past two weeks.
Many in Serbia are sceptical that anyone will be punished for the tragedy because the populist government holds a firm grip on both the police and judiciary.
Opposition legislators in Belgrade on Friday joined the silent protest by blocking traffic for 14 minutes outside the parliament building in the capital city.
In Novi Sad, a group of activists also released black balloons in the air symbolising the 14 victims.
A six-year-old girl was among those killed by the roof collapse.
The three injured people all had amputation surgery and remain in a life-threatening condition.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here