BELGRADE: Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on November 1, 2024, in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government.
The 11 include former construction, transport and infrastructure minister Tomislav Momirovic as well as former acting director of the state-run Serbian Railway Infrastructure company Nebojsa Surlan, prosecutors said. Another former transport minister, Goran Vesic, who was one of the first to resign after the accident, was wanted in the case but was hospitalised on Thursday, prosecutors said. The Nova.rs news site said Vesic underwent emergency surgery.
Since the accident, protests have been growing across Serbia, with some bringing hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to demand a transparent investigation and early elections. Thousands of people rallied in new protests late on Friday in several cities, including the capital Belgrade, to commemorate nine months since the accident. — AFP
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