NOVI SAD, Serbia (AP) — Protesters threw flares and red paint at the city hall building in the Serbian city of Novi Sad on Tuesday, in anger over last week’s protests. collapse of a concrete roof at the train station which killed 14 people. Police responded by firing tear gas canisters.
The demonstrators surrounded the city center building, breaking windows and throwing stones and other objects, despite calls from organizers to remain calm. Special police forces were deployed to the building.
Serbia is an autocrat President Aleksandar Vucic said police were “showing restraint,” while warning that “horrific, violent protests are underway.”
“People of Serbia, please do not think that violence is allowed,” he said on X. “Anyone who takes part in the incidents will be punished.”
Miran Pogacar, an opposition activist, said: “One glass window can be repaired, but we cannot bring back fourteen lives. People are angry. Serbia will not tolerate this.”
Protest organizers said they wanted to enter the city hall building and make their demands, including that those responsible for the canopy collapse be brought to justice.
Some protesters who tried to enter the building wore masks and were believed to be football hooligans close to the populist government.
Bojan Pajtic, an opposition politician, said he believed the violence was fueled by agents provocateurs, a tactic previously used in Serbia to derail peaceful anti-government protests and portray opposition demonstrators as enemies of the nation.
Earlier, thousands of protesters had marched through the city streets demanding that top officials resign over Friday’s fatal exterior roof collapse, including President Vucic and Prime Minister Milos Vucevic.
The demonstrators first gathered outside the train station, where they held a moment of silence for the victims as organizers read out their names. The crowd responded by chanting, “arrest the gang” and “thieves.”
The protest started peacefully, but some demonstrators later threw plastic bottles and rocks at the headquarters of Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party and smeared red paint on posters of the Serbian president and prime minister – a message that they had blood on their hands.
The demonstrators removed most of the Serbian national red, blue and white national flags that had apparently been hung from the headquarters to prevent an attack. That led to an angry response from the president.
“Our Serbian tricolor has been destroyed, hidden and removed by everyone who does not love Serbia,” Vucic wrote on us, the decent citizens of this country.”
As the protests wound down later in the evening, Vucic made a surprise trip to Novi Sad and made a brief appearance before his hundreds of supporters who gathered outside party headquarters.
Critics of Serbia’s populist government have blamed the disaster on rampant corruption in the Balkan country, a lack of transparency and shoddy work during renovation work on the station building, which was part of a wider railway deal with Chinese state-owned companies.
The accident happened without warning. Surveillance camera images showed the enormous canopy on the outer wall of the station building collapsing on people sitting on benches below or walking in and out.
Officials have promised full accountability and under pressure, Serbia’s construction minister resigned on Tuesday.
Prosecutors have said more than 40 people have already been questioned as part of an investigation into what happened. However, many in Serbia doubt that justice will be served if the populists have firm control over the legal system and the police.
Opposition parties behind Tuesday’s protest said they are also demanding Vucevic’s resignation and that documentation be made public listing all companies and individuals involved.
Among the victims was a 6-year-old girl. The condition of those injured in the roof collapse remained serious on Tuesday.
The train station has been renovated twice in recent years. Officials have insisted the canopy was not part of the renovation work. They suggested that this was the reason why it collapsed, but offered no explanation as to why it was not involved.
Novi Sad Train Station was originally built in 1964, while the renovated station was inaugurated by Vucic and his populist ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbánmore than two years ago as an important stopover for a planned fast train line between Belgrade and Budapest.