Progar: Man Missing After Falling Into Sava River

A man went missing in the Belgrade neighborhood of Progar on Friday evening after falling off a board into the Sava River. Police were notified of the disappearance at around 9 p.m. on September 19, after a local resident on the riverbank witnessed the moment he fell.

In brief:

• Location: Progar, a settlement on the Sava River in the Surcin municipality
• Time: Friday, September 19, around 9 p.m.
• Status: the search is ongoing; as of the morning of September 20, there is no word that the man has been found

According to reports carried by the media, the witness spotted the man on a board on the river. At one point he fell into the water and did not resurface. The witness called the police right away.

He explained that he saw the fall itself but did not see the man swim or surface afterward. That account is what set off the scale of the operation that followed.

Police, a dive team and the River Police unit on scene

Police patrols were sent to the scene immediately. They were joined by members of the Special Water Rescue Team and the River Police unit.

The search covered both the water and the riverbank in Progar, in the stretch where the man fell in, according to the witness. The relevant services searched the river itself as well as the shoreline within the settlement.

The River Police unit has boats and equipment for searching bodies of water and is typically called in when a disappearance has not been confirmed as a drowning, but a person’s fate is simply unknown. In cases like this, the Special Water Rescue Team also searches the part of the riverbed closer to shore, where the current is usually weaker.

Nightfall complicated the operation from the start. By mid September, the sun sets in Belgrade before 7 p.m., so by the time the disappearance was reported, around 9 p.m., it was already dark on the river. All three sources agree that poor visibility made the work of the teams on the ground harder and ruled out a quick search of the wider area around the spot where the man vanished.

First reports that evening, no news by morning

Telegraf published the first report on the incident at 9:33 p.m., about 33 minutes after the disappearance was reported, then updated the story at 10:25 p.m. Kurir and 24sedam carried the news that same evening, with the same account of events and the same details about the services involved.

None of the three outlets had reported by the morning of September 20 that the man had been found, alive or dead. According to the latest available information, the search is still underway, and there is no official statement yet on its outcome.

Progar is a riverside settlement in the Surcin municipality, on the bank of the Sava, just outside Belgrade. For now, the case is being treated as an accident, pending any information to the contrary.

None of the three sources have published the name of the missing man, nor said whether he is a Progar resident or someone who simply happened to be there. The outlets that reported the story have not given his age or any other personal details either.

If the relevant services reach an official outcome, the Interior Ministry (MUP) typically issues a statement with the basic facts of the operation and its result. Until then, all three reports on the Progar incident rest on the account of a single witness and on what the police, the Special Water Rescue Team and the River Police unit have done on the ground so far.

The newsroom will update this story as soon as the authorities announce an official outcome of the search for the missing man.