Hundreds of thousands of people descended on Serbia's capital on Saturday to protest over the deaths of 15 people in a railway station collapse.

While the government put attendance at 107,000 across Belgrade, an independent monitor said 325,000 - if not more - had gathered, making it Serbia's largest protest ever.

The Novi Sad collapse last November has galvanised anger towards the government and President Aleksandar Vucic. Demonstrators blame corruption and corner-cutting for the loss of life.

Serbian opposition lawmakers threw smoke grenades and used pepper spray inside parliament on Tuesday to protest against the government and to support demonstrating students, with one legislator suffering a stroke during the chaos.

Four months of student-led demonstrations, sparked by the deaths of 15 people when a railway station roof collapsed, have drawn in teachers, farmers and others to become the biggest threat yet to President Aleksandar Vucic's decade-long rule, with many denouncing rampant corruption and incompetence in government.

Serbian Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned on Tuesday following months of anti-government protests. The demonstrations were sparked by the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 15 people. After submitting his resignation, Vučević expressed hope that his departure would ease tensions and pave the way for renewed dialogue between the government and protesters.

Croatian President Zoran Milanović has recently been re-elected for a second term. In the second round of the presidential election he faced Dragan Primorac, backed by the governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Zoran Milanović, who has been president of Croatia since 2020, is supported by the opposition, the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Croatia's "pro-Russian" president, Zoran Milanović, overwhelmingly won reelection for another five-year term on Sunday.

Milanović, 58, defeated a candidate from the ruling conservative party in a runoff vote, official results showed.

Why It Matters

Milanović is a critic of the European Union and NATO, and has also spoken out against Western military support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has labeled Milanović "pro-Russian" and a threat to Croatia's international standing.

Montenegro on Tuesday extradited a South Korean mogul known as “the cryptocurrency king” to the United States, following a decision of its justice ministry earlier this month to accept a U.S. request, while refusing a South Korean handover plea, the Balkan country’s authorities said.

For 25 years, a busy junction at the centre of the Serbian capital of Belgrade has been dominated by the blackened shell of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defence. It has been deliberately left as it was after Nato bombs destroyed it in 1999 during the Kosovo war.

Yet now this shrine to Serbian nationalism is set to be torn down and redeveloped into a glitzy hotel and apartment complex. The investors are from, of all places, America — Belgrade’s old adversary, which twice in the 1990s led military interventions by Nato to thwart Serbian aggression in the region.

The European Commission will recommend on Tuesday to the  European UnionCouncil to start accession negotiations with  Bosnia and Herzegovina, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced.

"Today we will decide to recommend to the Council to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina," she said in a speech to the European Parliament.

Thousands gathered in a square in in central Belgrade on Saturday in the biggest protest yet over parliamentary and municipal elections on Dec. 17, results of which the demonstrators want anulled.

Protesters waving Serbian flags and holding a banner reading "We do not accept" cheered Marinika Tepic, a leader of the opposition Serbia Against Violence alliance, who has been on hunger strike since Dec. 18.

Serbians began voting on Sunday in a snap election seen as an effort by President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) to secure another four-year term, after two mass shootings earlier this year rattled their popularity.

A total of 18 parties and alliances are vying for the support of the 6.5 million-strong electorate for 250 seats in the parliament. The threshold for entering the parliament is 3% of votes. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT) and will close at 8 p.m.