A Serbian hunger striker demanding government accountability for the deaths of her son and 15 other people in a structural collapse last year said Monday she would end her fast after 16 days without food.
But the hunger striker, Dijana Hrka, 48, said she would remain in the tent outside the Serbian Parliament where she has been staying for more than two weeks, to continue her public show of opposition toward President Aleksandar Vucic.
Ms. Hrka said she had decided to resume eating at the encouragement of priests, children and other well-wishers who came to visit her after she was hospitalized several times in recent days.
“I believe I am needed alive far more, and that is why I decided to end the strike,” Ms. Hrka told a crowd of people at her tent, who applauded and chanted her name.
Her son, Stefan, was one of 16 people who were crushed by a falling concrete canopy at a recently renovated train station in northern Serbia last November. The disaster fueled public fury over government negligence and corruption, and led to demands for justice for the victims and for Mr. Vucic to call for snap elections.
With her hunger strike, Ms. Hrka became a symbol of a student-led movement in Serbia that has held some of the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the fall of the former dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Vucic did not respond immediately to a request for comment about Ms. Hrka on Monday night. In an interview last week, he said he believed his political opponents had hoped that Ms. Hrka would die and that “then everybody will blame me.”
“I do worry about her,” Mr. Vucic said, “and they don’t.”
Lara Jakes, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.
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