On this day, October 18, 1997, a thirteen-year-old was killed in the center of Belgrade Dusan Jovanovic, a Roma boy who is two members skinhead movement beaten to death just because he was Roma.
That evening, Dušan left his family's apartment in Beogradska Street to buy juice. He was intercepted on the street by two minors, Ištvan Fendrik and Milan Čujić, and began to beat him with their fists, cobblestones and a piece of gutter they had previously broken off.
The boy's father found him on the street. Dusan died as a result of his injuries, and it was determined that his neck was broken. The verdict confirmed that the motive for the murder was his belonging to the Roma national minority.
Fendrik and Čujić, who were 17 years old at the time of the crime, were each sentenced to ten years in prison. Their sentences were later reduced, so in 2004, after six years in prison, they were released on parole.
A walk from the Faculty of Law to Dušan Jovanović park
In June 2025, the Belgrade City Assembly adopted the initiative to name the park at Slavija, known as Mitić's Hole, after Dušan Jovanović. The initiative was submitted by his sister Duška Jovanović and the A11 Initiative for Economic and Social Rights.
Changing the name of the park and erecting a memorial represent the fulfillment of the family's long-standing request that the memory of the murdered boy be given a visible place in the city.
On the occasion of the anniversary of the murder, the A11 Initiative organizes a walk from the Faculty of Law to Dušan Jovanović Park, which starts at 19 p.m.
Dušan's murder remains one of the most famous cases of racially motivated violence in Serbia and a reminder of the consequences of neo-Nazi ideology and hatred towards Roma.
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