Dijana Hrka, the mother of Stefano, the young man who died in last year’s fall of the canopy at the train station in Novi Sad, who has been on hunger strike since November 2, announced on Monday that she is ending her strike on the advice of doctors, but that she will not give up her demands.
“I will end my hunger strike today, but I will stay here. I will not let my people and students down. Maybe someone would like to see me dead, but I think that in our joint struggle I can do much more alive,” Hrka told reporters.
On November 2, Hrka began a hunger strike in front of the Serbian Parliament in Belgrade, demanding the truth and responsibility for the fall of the canopy on November 1, 2024, under which her son Stefan and 15 others, mostly young people, died.
Her demand is the release of all students arrested during the year-long anti-government protests triggered by the Novi Sad tragedy, for which the protesters blame the government and its corrupt practices.
Dijana Hrka’s third demand is the calling of early parliamentary elections.
She previously invited Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to come and talk to her in front of everyone, while at the same time assessing that this would not happen because Vučić “does not have the guts” to do so.
Vučić has since invited her to his office for a talk, which she refused, and posted on Instagram that he invited her to stop the strike, and that he had spoken to her by phone.
After her first day of hunger strike, accompanied by provocations from the tent settlement in front of the Serbian Parliament where his supporters gather, Vučić accused Dijana Hrka and the citizens who support her of being organized from outside.
Dijana Hrka’s strike attracted great attention in Serbia and the region, but also abroad, and the New York Times called her “the unexpected mother of a movement”.
The NYT recalls that the Novi Sad tragedy sparked public anger over government negligence and corruption, sparking some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in Serbia since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
Since the tragedy at the Novi Sad train station, “Ms. Hrka has been so present at student protests that she has become an unexpected symbol of a movement.”, Hina writes.
