Woman rams car into anti-government protesters blocking traffic in Serbia

Anti-governmental protests turned violent when a woman rammed her car into a crowd of demonstrators in Serbia’s capital.

A student-led strike in Belgrade hut down businesses and drew tens of thousands of people to demonstrations around the country.

Shocking footage shows the students in neon vests standing quietly around the traffic blockade, when a car jolts forward, forcing the female student onto the bonnet before knocking her off.

It happened on the same day that President Aleksandar Vucic planned a big afternoon rally in a central town to counter the persistent anti-government protests that have challenged his tight grip on power.

Traffic has been blocked daily as protesters bring attention to the deaths of 15 people killed in the November collapse of a train station canopy that critics have blamed on government corruption.

Police in Belgrade said they detained the 24-year-old driver who rammed into a crowd of protesters in a section the city called New Belgrade.

The injured victim, a 26-year-old woman, was taken to an emergency hospital where her condition was not immediately known.

A similar ramming incident took place during a blockade last week in Belgrade, when a car rammed into protesting students, seriously injuring a young woman.

The mass protests demanding accountability have been the biggest since Vucic came to power more than a decade ago.

Vucic and the country’s mainstream media have accused the students of working under orders from foreign intelligence services to overthrow the authorities while pro-government thugs have repeatedly attacked protesting citizens.

Serbian universities have been blockaded for two months, along with many schools.

‘Things can’t stay the same any more,’ actor Goran Susljik told N1 regional television. ‘Students have offered us the possibility of change.’

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