(25 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Novi Sad – 25 April 2025
1. Various of people gathering in front of train station where a canopy collapsed in November 2024, killing 16 people
2. Tilt up from bags to runners
3. Student runner wearing t-shirt reading (English): “Novi Sad – Brussels Student Run 2025”
4. Nikola Kojcin, student runner, at event
5. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Nikola Kojcin, student:
“It’s going to be really hard, but we’ll make it, we have to make it. Since we decided we would take this trip, we knew we’d make it. The people will be with us, people from abroad will meet us, from across Europe, and they’ll push us and give us support to make it all the way there.”
6. Aleksa DImitrijevic, student (centre), holding school flag
7. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksa Dimitrijevic, student:
“This is a relay ultra-marathon. We’ll carry a letter which will contain all that happened, especially on November 1, 2024, in Serbia, but also other things that have happened in Serbia in the last decade, and the letter will be read at the session of the European Parliament, so people can here a bit more about the deep political and social crisis in Serbia.”
8. Various of student runners holding flowers and holding sixteen minute silence to commemorate victims of train station canopy collapse
9. Various of students laying flowers at station
10. Various of students beginning ultra-marathon
STORYLINE:
After cycling all the way to France, Serbia’s protesting students on Friday embarked on a new endeavour – a 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) run to Brussels aimed to draw European Union attention to their months-long struggle against corruption and for the rule of law in the Balkan country.
More than 20 students set off from the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad for a relay-style “ultra-marathon” that is expected to last for 18 days.
Cheered off by hundreds of people, the students headed toward the eastern Croatian town of Osijek, the first stop on their journey.
Nikola Kojcin acknowledged that “it’s going to be really hard, but we’ll make it, we have to make it.”
University students have been a key force behind a nationwide anti-graft movement in Serbia rattling populist President Aleksandar Vucic.
He is formally leading Serbia toward EU membership but has been accused of stifling democratic freedoms while boosting ties with Russia and China.
Many pro-democracy Serbs are disappointed with what they view as the EU’s lukewarm response to Vucic’s increasingly authoritarian ways.
The students said their run to EU headquarters was a “reminder” that the bloc should insist on its own values of freedom, dignity and the rule of law.
Vucic has repeatedly accused the student protesters of staging a “colour revolution" and working to “destroy Serbia” under orders from abroad.
He told Informer TV on Thursday evening that Serbia has been “attacked” and blamed the protests for alleged huge damage to the country’s economy.
The students said in a press release that they “are not asking to be rescued” by the EU but are "sending a clear reminder to Europe: democratic values … must be upheld not only in official declarations but in public awareness and collective action.”
The runners are carrying a letter they hope will be read at the EU institutions “so people could hear a bit more about the deep political and social crisis in Serbia,” explained student Aleksa Dimitrijevic.
Almost daily demonstrations were sparked nearly six months ago by a deadly train station canopy collapse in Novi Sad which killed 16 people.
AP video by Marko Drobnjakovic
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