FOTO/VIDEO Thousands march in Sarajevo after tragic tram derailment

The gathering was held under the motto "Unity in silence".

Organisers of the rally were the Student Parliament of the University of Sarajevo and the secondary education teachers’ union, with symbolic support from smaller groups of protesters who gathered simultaneously in the cities Zenica and Tuzla, north of Sarajevo.

Protesters blocked traffic and then rallied outside government offices in the city centre, chanting “justice, justice” and “truth, truth.”

At the front of the march was a prominent banner featuring photographs of young people and children who had died over the past years in various incidents under unresolved circumstances, with the words 'The youth killed by the system'.

Protesters in Sarajevo again called for a swift and transparent investigation into the tram derailment and for improvements at the city transport company GRAS.

The investigation into the accident, in which student Erdoan Morankic died and pupil Ella Jovanovic was seriously injured but is now in stable condition, is being conducted by the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor’s Office. The inquiry has been complicated by the fact that the tram’s surveillance camera was not working, making it difficult to determine exactly what happened and whether the driver’s actions were appropriate.

Protesters walked from the Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina via main streets to the Prosecutor's Office building and made a short stop at the Monument to the Killed Children of the Besieged Sarajevo, where a few of the participants held brief speeches.

One of them was a man whose ten-year-old son was killed in a traffic accident in 2012. His address, filled with pain and indignation against the judicial and police apparatus, further laid bare the sense of injustice shared by the gathered crowd.

Sead Marevac's son was hit by a truck on a dangerous section without a proper traffic light, and was declared 100% guilty of his own death. On the other hand, as the father pointed out, the truck driver did not spend a single day in prison, nor was his driver's license revoked.

The tragedy of the Marevac family did not end only with the loss of a child. According to Sead, the authorities additionally punished them by obliging them to pay 9,000 marks (cca. 4,500 euro) in court costs for the lost litigation.

As a war veteran, he concluded his address to the youth with a painful reminder of his own sacrifice in the defense of the country.

"I no longer have children, my 300-year-old lineage has been destroyed. I was wounded twice on the Zuc hill, we defended you, we gave ourselves. Did we fight for such a state and such corrupt leaders?" Marevac asked at the end, causing strong reactions of support among the protesters.

Particularly emotional was a student who took the stage to deliver a speech, which she ended in tears.

"We are here today to say what many are not able to, to show that we will not be silent in the face of injustice, to show that human lives are worth more than bureaucracy and positions. And that is why we stand here today - not out of spite, not out of hatred but out of love for life. We are here today because we are outraged because we are fed up with negligence and injustice that cost lost human lives," she cried.

She recalled of many tragic events that ended fatally and asked:

"How many more times will a mother open the news sites instead of the door for her child when they come home?"

The organisers said the gatherings would continue, but did not specify the date of the next one.