BELGRADE (Reuters) – Beset by weeks of protests by students over a deadly train station disaster last month, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic acted on Wednesday to defuse the unrest by pledging to meet all their demands.
The concrete awning of the recently renovated roof of the railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad caved in on Nov. 1, killing 14 people and injuring three. One of those hurt later died of their injuries.
Following the disaster, opposition parties, students and the public took to the streets, blaming the accident on government corruption, negligence and nepotism that resulted in shoddy construction.
The ruling coalition and Vucic denied the charges and said all those responsible for the disaster must be held to account.
Students’ demands included publication of all documents related to reconstruction of the station and release of arrested protesters.
Vucic has faced other anti-government rallies since he first came to power as deputy prime minister in 2012, but this is the first time he has bowed to protesters’ demands.
“Everything we have and what the prosecutor’s office has … will be made available to the public tomorrow,” Vucic told a press conference.
He said those arrested during protests had been released, and pledged to pardon all who could be convicted at subsequent trials.
While Vucic spoke, hundreds of students who gathered in front of his office in the city centre jeered and demanded his resignation.
“For these people who hear this noise, it’s the noise of somewhere around 600 of them … I respect and appreciate them immensely,” Vucic said in a live TV broadcast.
Irina Sekulic, a student activist, said daily protests would continue until authorities apprehend people who often clashed with students at the rallies.
“We will not back down,” she said.
Savo Manojlovic, leader of the Kreni-Promeni (Move-Change) opposition movement, criticised Vucic’s handling of legal documents related to the disaster.
“What a disgrace, (that) the documentation … is not with prosecutors but with the President. This is the collapse of the state,” Manojlovic posted on the X social network.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Branko Filipovic; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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