Tourists have been faced with tear gas and burning barricades as escalating violence takes over Belgrade, nine months on from a disaster that saw 16 people die when a railway station’s roof collapsed
British tourists have been caught up in major riots in a European capital city.
Ben Lawrence, 18, from Stoke-by-Nayland told how he was forced to run with the crowd to escape police attacks in the Serbian capital Belgrade. He told the Mirror: “The police were charging and starting to attack protesters, so we ran with a horde of people which was terrifying. It wasn’t like police at home doing a job, but rather two opposing sides that hate each other.”
Tourists have seen their evenings filled with the smell of tear gas, combative chanting and burning barricades manned by thousands of protestors who say they are ready for war, including one who went on to the front line in his wheelchair.
The escalating violence has plagued the Balkan country for nine months after 16 people died when a railway station’s roof collapsed in Serbia’s second largest city, Novi Sad.
Demonstrators blamed government incompetence and corruption. But the violence has reached a new level in the last two nights and it’s expected to get worse this weekend as protestors call for an end to the government of President Aleksandar Vučić.
Ben was on an interrailing trip across Europe when he and two school mates were caught up in the vicious riots. Another Brit staying just up the street from last night’s fighting, Jez, 23, from St Albans, said: “It reminds me of Putin’s Russia. I went to Moscow seven or eight years ago and this is quite like it.”
The Serbian man who faced down the riot police line in his wheelchair, Vladimir Šupeljak, said he was ready for war or “whatever it takes” to get rid of Vučić’s regime, which has won six national elections since 2014, all marred by alleged fraud. Mr Šupeljak says he doesn’t deserve the title of President. “No. He is the crime boss. He is the boss of the mafia”.
No Brits were injured, but dozens of Serbs have been and protests are only getting more extreme. Demonstrators were tearing up paving stones and pallets as anti-police weapons. Fireworks explode against riot shields every night and are answered by hissing tear gas canisters shot into scrambling, masked crowds.
The intensity of violence has significantly increased this week. From 7:30pm to 11:30pm on Wednesday and Thursday the city centre was paralysed as thousands of protestors battled police in full riot gear armed with batons, tear gas and flash bangs. Three armoured cars were used to disperse angry mobs.
Belgrade electrical engineering student Bogdan Babić, 27, was in the midst of the chaos on both nights. He said he was hit by batons three times on Wednesday.
He organised the daily Stop Serbia silent protests where people gather and block streets and stay silent for 16 minutes in memory of the 16 people who died at Novi Sad station. Bogdan said: “I’m expressing myself by blocking the roads for the people in Novi Sad.”
But President Vučić is not impressed by claims of peaceful protest and has promised to arrest more demonstrators “I think it is clear they did not want peace and Ghandi-type protests. There will be more arrests,” he said in a live TV broadcast.
But Belgrade is bracing itself for even bigger demonstrations this weekend. So far the British government has not issued any travel warning about Belgrade or Serbia generally.
Serbia was at the centre of a series of wars in the 1990s marked by the worst European atrocities since World War Two, as the former Yugoslavia broke up.