Violence this week marks an escalation, with increasing strain on Serbia’s Government

Emergency and rescue teams working at the site where a concrete outdoor roof of a train station collapsed in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad last November 1. At least eight people were killed, the interior minister said. Photo / Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia via AFP

Clashes between rival groups of protesters in Serbia flared again today, police said, as months of anti-government demonstrations boiled over into street violence this week.

A wave of anti-corruption protests has gripped Serbia since November, when the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station roof killed 16 people, a disaster widely blamed on entrenched corruption.

Anti-graft protesters again gathered in several cities across Serbia today.

That was mainly in response to a previous attack by governing party supporters on demonstrators on Wednesday in the town of Vrbas, about 160km north of the capital Belgrade.

Large groups of pro-government supporters, most wearing masks, confronted protesters yesterday, and the two groups hurled bottles, stones and fireworks at each other.

Police had arrested nearly 50 people across the country yesterday, and around 30 riot police were injured.

Today, protesters vandalised the Novi Sad headquarters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and two other SNS offices in the city, RTS television reported, during protests spread across Serbia.

In the capital, Belgrade, protesters massed in front of government buildings and the Army headquarters, before heading towards nearby SNS offices.

But a heavy riot police deployment kept them from reaching the offices using teargas.

“These are no longer peaceful student protests but people who want to provoke violence ... This is an attack on the state,” Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told a news conference.

At least five police officers were injured today and 14 protesters were arrested, the ministry said.

‘Intensifying crackdown’

Frustrated with government inaction, protesters have demanded an investigation into the Novi Sad tragedy and piled pressure on right-wing President Aleksandar Vucic to call early elections.

Over the past nine months, thousands of mostly peaceful, student-led demonstrations have been held, some attracting hundreds of thousands.

But this week’s violence marks a significant escalation and indicates the increasing strain on Vucic’s populist government, in power for 13 years.

Since June 28, when around 140,000 demonstrators gathered in Belgrade, the Government has responded with an “intensifying crackdown” on activists, according to a statement by United Nations human rights experts released this month.

Protesters and those linked to the movement have faced a “troubling pattern of repression” including excessive police force, intimidation, and arbitrary arrest, the experts said.

Vucic has remained defiant, repeatedly rejecting calls for early elections and denouncing the demonstrations as part of a foreign plot to overthrow him.

Student protesters have accused the police of protecting pro-government supporters while doing little to stop the attacks on their own gatherings.

“The authorities tried to provoke a civil war last night,” the students wrote on their official Instagram page.

Vucic, who had visited pro-government encampments yesterday, denied his supporters had started the violence.

“No one attacked them anywhere,” he said of the anti-government protesters, speaking at a press conference.

“They went everywhere to attack those who think differently,” he added.

While the protests have so far led to the resignation of the prime minister and the collapse of his cabinet, Vucic remains at the helm of a reshuffled government.

-Agence France-Presse