"The Chinese worked on the reconstruction under the ‘veil’ of secrecy: Who is responsible for the deaths at the train station in Novi Sad?", 2 November 2024

Fourteen people died and dozens were injured when an old part of the canopy at the Novi Sad train station collapsed […]

A multi-tonne canopy structure fell on people who were there at the Novo mesto railway station around noon on Friday […]

The Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesic, also confirmed that the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station, which had collapsed, had not been rehabilitated together with the rest of the building […]

The contractor for the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station, part of which collapsed on Friday […] was the Chinese consortium CRIC&CCCC (“China Railway International Co. Ltd” and “China Communications Construction Company”. Ltd”).

The Chinese contractor is also responsible for the construction of the Novi Sad – Subotica – state border railway line.

[...] Portal021 asked the Ministry of Transport and the JP “Infrastructure Railways of Serbia” to provide them with contracts and invoices related to this work.

They received a reply from the Ministry of Construction […] stating that they had “contacted the Chinese contractor”, who informed them that he ‘does not agree to any information from and related to the contract being passed on to third parties […]

This is unusual, as the Ministry has not provided a legal basis for withholding documents from the public.