Serbia arrests 11 people over deadly awning collapse at train station

A former government minister was reportedly among 11 people arrested in Serbia on Thursday over the deadly collapse of a train station awning earlier this month that killed 15 people and severely injured two others.

The suspects, who have not been officially identified, face charges of committing criminal acts against public security, causing public danger and irregular construction work, said prosecutors in the northern city of Novi Sad, where the tragedy occurred.

Meanwhile, local media reported that Goran Vesić, who resigned as Serbia’s construction minister after the collapse on 1 November, and Jelena Tanasković, who this week stepped down as acting director of the state-run railway company, were among those arrested.

Vesić said on Thursday in a post on Facebook that he had not been arrested but had “voluntarily responded” to police in Novi Sad. Tanasković has not commented.

The arrests follow a wave of protests demanding that those responsible be brought to justice and punished. Many in Serbia believe that the collapse of the awning above the train station’s entrance resulted from corruption and a lack of transparency, which led to substandard work in renovating the station building, undertaken as part of a Serbian-Chinese partnership.

Opposition lawmakers and other protesters on Wednesday scuffled with police outside the court building in Novi Sad for a third consecutive day, demanding indictments over the tragedy and the release from detention of activists jailed during earlier rallies.

“Pressure and persistence have succeeded,” Marinika Tepić, one of the leaders of the opposition Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), wrote on X on Thursday. She said the arrests would not have happened without the efforts of the protesters in recent days.

The protesters are also demanding the publication of the contracts signed with the four companies involved in the station’s renovation: China Railway International, China Communications Construction, France’s Egis and Hungary’s Utiber.

Two engineers from Egis were reportedly among the 11 individuals arrested, according to local media. Egis could not immediately be reached for comment on the reports.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has not commented on the arrests, but said that authorities had faced days of pressure to “supposedly speed up the work of the prosecutor’s office.”

“Our prosecutor’s office has made decisions 100 times faster than in developed EU countries when similar incidents occurred,” Vučić said in a video message on Thursday.

The train station was built in 1964 and renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider deal between China, Serbia and Hungary to establish a fast rail connection between Belgrade and Budapest. Serbian officials have offered conflicting information about whether the awning was part of the renovation, with its maintenance now under scrutiny.

The awning suddenly collapsed on 1 November, falling on people sitting or strolling below. Initially, 14 people died and three were severely injured, but one of the injured people died on Sunday. Doctors are still working to save the other two people, officials said.

Additional sources • AP