Weeks of student-led protests, the largest in Serbia in decades, continue to mount a challenge to the Western Balkan country's President Aleksandar Vučić. View on euronews

Protesters have repeatedly faced attacks, including on students, with drivers ramming cars into demonstrations on two previous occasions. Two people were seriously injured. Along the way to Novi Sad on Friday, the students were greeted by cheering citizens who honked their car horns or came out of their homes to offer food and drinks.

They packed up food, water and extra clothes and set off. Hundreds of Serbian university students on Thursday started an 80-kilometer, or 50 mile, march toward the northern city of Novi Sad.

Thousands of students blocked traffic at Autokomanda, one of Belgrade's busiest intersections, for 24 hours to protest the Serbian government's failure to prosecute those responsible for the collapse of a concrete canopy at the main railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad in November.

The protests began after an attack on drama students on January 24 by pro-government thugs during a daily 15-minute commemoration for victims of a deadly overhang collapse in November that killed 15 people.

Hundreds of students set off on a protest march of some 90 kilometers from Belgrade to the northern city of Novi Sad on January 30. The demonstrations come amid months of anti-government protests following a deadly infrastructure collapse in Novi Sad in November 2024.