site.btaHigh Schoolers from Belgrade March 100 Km in Solidarity with Protest against Government Corruption

High-school students from Belgrade set off on foot for Novi Sad to support their peers during a protest against the administrative pressure exerted on them. Protesting students have been blocking some 60 faculties across Serbia for months, after a concrete canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed on November 1, 2024, and led to 16 fatalities.

The high-schoolers plan to cover the distance between the two cities of over 100 kilometres in order to join a planned protest in Novi Sad on Saturday against the alleged corruption that has eroded the Serbian government and led to low-quality reconstruction of the canopy. The students demand that anyone responsible for the tragedy should be held politically and criminally accountable.

The march went on under the chants "Nobody is tired." Some of the high schoolers in Novi Sad are unwilling to go back to the classrooms or participate in distance learning until the students' demands are met.

Despite the unexpected rain, participants in the march to Novi Sad paused to observe 16 minutes of silence at 11:52 a.m., the exact moment the tragedy occurred.

Participants in the march will likely grow with more high schoolers from Valjevo and other Serbian cities.

After the collapsed canopy in Novi Sad killed 16 people, a wave of protests, blockades, civil disobedience swept Serbia. The canopy collapsed even though the station had been renovated for three years including by Chinese state companies.