Novi Sad Falls Silent at 11.52, 638 Days After Collapse

The display outside the railway station in Novi Sad read 11.52 when the crowd stopped moving. At that minute on November 1, 2024, the concrete canopy tore away from the building and came down on the people standing under it. Sixteen died and one person was seriously injured.

On Saturday, August 1, 2026, exactly 638 days had passed since that minute. Students and residents stood in front of the station and kept silent for 16 minutes, one minute for each name. Sixteen of them held sheets of paper bearing the names of the dead, and one name was read aloud for every minute of the silence. When the silence ended, flowers and candles were laid at the spot where the canopy fell.

Dijana Hrka, whose son Stefan Hrka was killed in the collapse, spoke briefly. She thanked those who had stayed with her and said someone has to answer for what happened.

Why the gatherings return on the first of every month

The commemoration is tied to a day of the month rather than to an anniversary. Since December 2024, the first day of each month has followed the same sequence in Novi Sad: arrive outside the station at 11.52, then hold a silence lasting as many minutes as there were dead. Saturday was the twenty-first time.

The ritual has since spread beyond Novi Sad. We reported on that when Zrenjanin joined the towns marking the same minute. This time the gatherings ran in two cities, Novi Sad and Nis, across three separate hours of the same day.

How August 1 unfolded

• 11.52, railway station in Novi Sad: 16 minutes of silence, the names read out, flowers and candles laid
• 7 p.m., the intersection by the Basic Court in Nis: a gathering organised by students from Nis
• 8 p.m., Futoska pijaca market in Novi Sad: the start of the commemorative march to the station

The evening column set off from the Futoska pijaca market. It was organised by the Novi Sad Assembly Network, and alongside those on foot there were cyclists and motorcyclists. They moved without noise. One side of Bulevar Oslobodjenja was closed while the column passed, and during the tribute itself the junction of Bulevar Oslobodjenja and Bulevar Jase Tomica was blocked. Traffic was released afterwards, the blockade lasting only as long as the tribute.

Nis: 16 white roses outside the courthouse

In Nis the gathering began at 7 p.m. at the intersection by the Basic Court. Students and residents laid 16 white roses in front of the court entrance and held 16 minutes of silence, using the same measure that fixes every first of the month in Novi Sad. The call the Nis students put out before the gathering came down to three numbers and two sentences:

21 months, 16 victims, 0 held responsible. We do not forget, we do not give up

The address was delivered by Jelena Ignjatovic, a professor at the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics of the University of Nis. She dedicated it to the families of the dead and to persisting in the search for accountability.

The number 16 ran through the whole day as the one figure nobody disputes. Sixteen minutes of silence in Novi Sad, 16 sheets of paper with names outside the station, 16 white roses outside the court in Nis. It is the part of the commemoration that has not changed since December 2024, because the death toll does not change.

The case is moving, the verdict is not

In 638 days no court has reached a conclusion. The indictment in the canopy case, which names former minister Goran Vesic among the defendants, has been confirmed, but the trial is not over and nobody has yet been held finally responsible for the deaths of 16 people.

That gap is what the crowd repeats on the first of every month. There is a case file and hearings are being scheduled, while the figure the students quote in their call still stands at zero. So the date keeps coming back rather than closing.

The next gathering falls on September 1, 2026. By then 22 months, or 669 days, will have passed since the canopy came down, and the silence will still be 16 minutes long.