BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A driver rammed his car into a crowd and seriously injured a young woman Thursday at one of the student-led protests that have been held daily throughout Serbia over the November collapse of a railway station canopy in the country’s north that killed 15 people.
The driver fled the scene in downtown Belgrade after the young woman was thrown onto his car roof and then to the ground with bleeding head injuries. N1 television said she was seriously wounded and was taken to a hospital in a conscious state. State RTS television said she was in stable condition.
Police said they detained the driver and that he was being charged with attempted murder. Several such incidents have been reported during the protests since the blockades started, but this was the first case to result in a serious injury.
Hundreds of university students gathered on Thursday in front of the law faculty in downtown Belgrade in a spontaneous protest in support of the injured woman. They chanted slogans including “Killers” and “You will not be allowed to run us over.”
The students later marched toward the state prosecutor's office while hundreds also gathered in Novi Sad, the northern city where the concrete canopy at the railway station building collapsed.
“We are very concerned about today's incident against the demonstrators,” the European Union mission in Serbia said on X. “The right to assembly is a basic right which has to be protected when peacefully exercised.”
Residents throughout Serbia have been stopping in silence for 15 minutes almost daily as part of persistent anti-government protests and demands that those responsible for the canopy collapse be punished.
Traffic blockades have taken place daily since Nov. 1 at 11:52 a.m., the exact time when the canopy at the railway station building in Novi Sad crashed down on people who were sitting or strolling below on a sunny day.
The station building was renovated twice in recent years. Many in Serbia believe rampant corruption led to sloppy work on the building reconstruction, which was part of a wider railroad project with Chinese state companies.
The collapse also has become a flashpoint for broader dissatisfaction with the growingly autocratic rule of populist President Aleksandar Vučić, reflecting public demands for democratic changes.
Vučić has alleged the student-led protests have been “financed” from abroad to topple him from power by force. He has sided with people who are against the daily protests saying their freedom of movement has been jeopardized with the 15-minute blockades of traffic.
The Associated Press