Zrenjanin Joins the Monthly Silence for Canopy Victims
Three cities mark 21 months since the Novi Sad railway canopy collapse: Novi Sad at 11.52, Nis outside the Basic Court at 7 p.m., and Zrenjanin opening its own monthly cycle.
On the day that marks 21 months since the canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad, gatherings are scheduled in three cities, and one of them is happening for the first time. Citizens’ assemblies in Zrenjanin have called residents to Trg slobode at 7.30 p.m., saying this will not be a one off event but the first in a series repeated on the first day of every month.
In Novi Sad people gather at exactly 11.52, outside the railway station. The call came from students blockading the Novi Sad faculties together with the citizens’ assemblies of Novi Sad. In Nis, students blockading the University of Nis asked fellow students and residents to come to the junction outside the Basic Court at 7 p.m.
Why everything stops at 11.52
The canopy in front of the Novi Sad railway station came down on November 1, 2024, at 11.52. Sixteen people were killed and one person was severely injured. That hour and minute have been the marker of every gathering since, whichever city hosts it.
The first tributes began back in November 2024, and the silence lasted 15 minutes then, one minute for each person killed. After the 16th victim died, the silence was extended to 16 minutes and has stayed that way.
Nobody has been convicted in a final judgment over the collapse. That sentence appears in all three calls as the stated reason for coming out.
What the calls actually say
The Novi Sad call went out on social media, stripped down to a date, a place and a time. Students blockading the Novi Sad faculties wrote:
Railway station, August 1, 11:52
The citizens’ assemblies of Novi Sad posted a slightly longer version:
1.8. Railway station, 11:52. 21 months. 0 held responsible. We do not forget
The Zrenjanin assemblies recalled in their own post that 16 people died in the collapse and that nobody has answered for it, and invited what they described as all justice loving and honourable citizens of Zrenjanin to join them. According to that post, the gatherings will continue until the student demands are met.
Zrenjanin enters the calendar
Until now the monthly cycle has been tied mainly to Novi Sad, where the collapse happened, and to university towns where the blockades are running. The decision by the Zrenjanin assemblies to set their own slot on the first of each month means the practice is spreading to cities with no direct link to the site of the disaster.
The Zrenjanin slot has been moved to the evening, 7.30 p.m., so it does not fall on the minute of the collapse. The wording about student demands ties the gathering to the same platform that blockading students have been repeating since the autumn of 2024, meaning the local assemblies are not opening a separate list of their own.
Two gatherings in one Nis evening
August 1 in Nis carries two separate causes. Besides the commemorative gathering outside the Basic Court at 7 p.m., a roundabout blockade over the route of the high speed railway line has been announced for the same day, leaving the two events an hour apart. The first is about accountability for the Novi Sad canopy, the second about local infrastructure and the way the route has been drawn through the city.
For the students blockading the University of Nis, that means sharing an evening slot with a cause that has nothing to do with November 1, 2024, a logistical matter for the organisers rather than a symbolic one.
How this sits alongside the court process
The gatherings run in parallel with the case we have already covered in our report on how the canopy indictment leads to the president’s office. The difference is in tempo. The court process moves to its own deadlines and without a public calendar, while the gatherings have a fixed date, the first of the month, and a fixed minute, 11.52.
As long as there is no final verdict, the number in the Novi Sad post climbs by one every month. On that logic the next slot falls on September 1, 2026, when 22 months will have passed since the collapse, and Trg slobode in Zrenjanin will be holding its second gathering.
