“WE LOVE SERBIA, WE WANT TO STAY IN IT”: A large number of students from Kosovo and Metohija headed to Niš! (VIDEO)

“Majanje in Niš” is the main event in Serbia today. Serbs from Kosovo, together with students, some by private car, but also organized, headed to the “Student Edict” this morning, with the number doubled this morning.

After Kragujevac, it’s Niš’s turn. Rivers of students and citizens have flowed into the city of southern Serbia, sung in song and story. The 18-hour major “Student Edict” protest begins. In a few hours, colleagues from the University of Pristina and fellow citizens from Northern Kosovo will join them again, writes the KoSSev portal.

This morning, KoSSev reporters found more people at the bus station in Kosovska Mitrovica than two weeks ago, when the “Let’s meet on Sretenje” gathering was held in Kragujevac.

Jana Doder and Nikola Marković are students of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Pristina, which has been located in Kosovska Mitrovica since after the war.

They went to Niš because they want to support all their colleagues who have been protesting for months, but also because, as they say, they love Serbia.

“We love Serbia, we want to stay in it, we don’t want to leave here, but to fight to the end as much as we can. Because many tragic and bad things have happened, but what is happening now is so beautiful, so wonderful, hope is awakening in all of us again,” said Jana.

Students from Kosovo should not be silent, even though they are in the situation they are in, they know what it is like to be under a canopy – to be forced to be silent, the students said.

“We often hear from here that students from inner Serbia do not sympathize with what is happening in Kosovo. I think it’s quite the opposite, that they sympathize the most. They know what’s going on. It is important that they have shown it a million times, that we must stand by them as they stand by us, that we must be solidary, brave, to show love,” says Nikola.

And that is exactly what they expect in Niš today.

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And while students expect love and solidarity, the older ones have slightly different messages. Srđan Đorđević, a 46-year-old Mitrovčan who was the first to publicly support students from the city on the Ibar and organized the first gathering “15 minutes of silence”, regularly attends major protests that have been organized from Niš, via Kragujevac, to Novi Sad. Before each trip or gathering, he always sends the same message – to fellow citizens to free themselves from fear, and to government representatives – to resign.

He did so this morning, in a mood for “a joke”:

“I want to greet all the people of Mitrovica, I know they are sorry and that they are not afraid,” he said, alluding to the fear that residents in the city on the Ibar are still releasing more slowly than their compatriots, but adding further:

“But, considering that there were 40 of us last time, today there are 70, by bus alone, not to mention how many of them went by car, so I think this is a very nice story, and that the Supreme can prepare for resignation. Thank you and have a nice day.”

The local bus carrier “Joe Travel”, as for the previous gathering “Let’s meet on Sretenje”, again organized free transport, and its owner Goran Antić personally drives the students.

Once a student himself, but also the leader of the student protest, this morning he says that it is his duty to help in the organization.

The number of people he is transporting this morning has doubled, and in Niš, which is why he started with a double-decker bus. To Jarinje, he will pick up passengers, and across Jarinje, in Niš:

“I expect to meet some people dear to us whom we expect there and with whom we will meet and encourage each other to endure to the end.”

In the meantime, this group is taking a break in Kuršumlija.