Two years after a concrete canopy collapsed at Novi Sad’s train station, killing 16 people, no trial has begun despite multiple investigations and charges against 13 officials, including former construction minister Goran Vesić.
On Sunday, thousands gathered in steady rain for a commemorative event organized by students, marking the anniversary with 16 minutes of silence, wreaths, and candles. The disaster on 1 November 2024 triggered mass protests that led to last week’s election victory by the student-led *Studentska lista*, which ousted Aleksandar Vučić’s long-ruling Serbian Progressive Party after 14 years in power.
Prosecutors have yet to conclude any of the three separate legal processes, though charges were filed in 2025 against Vesić and others for endangering public safety. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is separately investigating potential misuse of EU funds linked to the station’s renovation, part of a larger railway project involving China and Hungary. Vučić and Hungary’s then-prime minister Viktor Orbán had toured the renovated station in 2022.
At the commemoration, a student speaker called the collapse “a murder” and demanded accountability, while participants laid 16 red hearts and wreaths for the victims, among them two sisters aged six and ten. The Serbian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Porfirije held a memorial service, urging remembrance and responsibility.
The student movement has since demanded accelerated investigations into the collapse and other high-profile cases, as well as the resignation of senior figures in the police and intelligence services. Last week, prosecutors detained Marko Kričak, Vučić’s former criminal police chief, and another officer over abuse of office in a separate murder probe, though Kričak faces no charges related to the Novi Sad tragedy.
Public broadcaster RTS interrupted programming at 11:52, the exact time of the collapse, to display the names of the 16 victims on a black screen. The station’s renovation cost millions and was completed shortly before the disaster, which authorities initially claimed had not involved any renovation work.
