"Midway through a 16-day, 250-mile (400km) march from Novi Pazar to Novi Sad, Inas Hodzic was still remarkably energetic. Like thousands of other Serbian students, he was making his way to the city which, last autumn, become the scene of national tragedy. Sixteen people were killed when the newly renovated canopy of Novi Sad's main railway station collapsed on 1 November 2024, a disaster that critics say exposed much more than faulty construction and sparked Serbia's largest youth-led protest movement since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic."
"On Saturday, exactly a year on from the disaster, he will join tens of thousands of others in Novi Sad for a demonstration aimed at telling Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's authoritarian president, that they aren't going anywhere. The student-led movement says it has awakened the spirit of a generation once convinced politics was pointless, and taken much of Serbian society with it."
Students marched from Novi Pazar to Novi Sad after a deadly canopy collapse killed 16 people on 1 November 2024. The disaster prompted accusations of shoddy renovation and exposed deeper grievances about corruption and repression. Thousands of students have led sustained protests that grew into Serbia's largest youth-led movement since the 2000s. Protesters have moved from general anger to concrete demands, including snap parliamentary elections and justice for the victims. Tens of thousands plan demonstrations on the disaster's anniversary to pressure President Aleksandar Vucic, even as internal disagreements emerge over next steps and strategy.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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