Photo: Marija JankovićWhile the people of Belgrade with tears in their eyes lit candles near Ribnikar, the President of the Republic said that the children of "wealthy" parents who "have everything in abundance" go to that school.
My daughters went to Ribnikar. Both have photos with Dragan Vlahović, who welcomed them at the entrance to the school for eight years. He was employed as a security guard, and he was much more than that. The children really loved him because Dragan did not behave like some kind of supervisory authority, but like someone who is there to help them, if they need any help. The children knew that he was there for them and because of them, you can't fool children. A thirteen-year-old child killed Dragan with his father's gun yesterday.
My daughters now go to the Third Belgrade Gymnasium, they just crossed the concrete football field at the corner of Njegoševa and Kralj Milutin. Most of the Third students went to Ribnikar. For them it is a school. In their school, one student killed eight students and Dragan yesterday. He seriously wounded a teacher and six other children, two of whom are in critical condition.
Minister of Education Branko Ruzic decided that today all schools are working normally, and that the students of the Third Belgrade High School should go to classes in the building that is only separated by a yard from the place of violent death. Did the minister ask the psychologists what this means for those children? To sit in classrooms across from the classroom where that child killed eight children yesterday. My daughters won't go to class today, of course, if they don't want to.
Yesterday, I was looking at the students of Third Belgrade, I know many of them as elementary school students from Ribnikar, now they are 16, 17, 18 years old. They stand in front of the school and hug a boy whose sister, who was in the fifth grade, was killed. They are still unaware of the magnitude of the horror that marked their lives. They sympathize with the pain of their friend, they grieve for Dragan. They knew him. For them, he is the face of this mass death. Through him, they identify with this unimaginable tragedy. They mourn him because he was a grown man, and grown men die. Children don't die. They don't kill children and above all - children don't kill children and that's even in their Ribnikar. It will be a long time before they are aware of what really happened, and even longer before they can process it.
Last night those kids got together on Cvetni trg to mourn together for the murdered children. And Dragan. To lay a flower, to light a candle. A large number of citizens came to pay their respects to fellow citizens who experienced what no one should experience. Candles were also lit at the corner of Njegoševa and Kralja Milutin.
Pain and tears on the streets of this dumbfounded city. Adults are crying, children are in a state of shock that they are still unaware of. Every grown man in this country has suffered a lot in the last thirty years, but this is simply too much. When I think of those parents who sent their children off to school yesterday, on that spring May 3rd, like every day, I can hardly hold back the tears. Or I don't keep them.
And then last night, after everything, when I came home, driven by professional curiosity, I rewound the address to the people of the president of this country in the hope that once, at least once, he would simply express his condolences to all those who are burdened with pain, send words of comfort and piety, and I soon realized that I expected too much . The president emphasized that the children of "wealthy" parents whose income "is not less than 300.000" dinars, the "crème de la crème" of this society, go to Ribnikar, explained that they are not among "those who struggle for existence", that "they have everything in abundance". Who did the President of the Republic address and with what purpose? Why is that? What kind of insinuations are these in the day of great mourning?
And then about what he's going to do, how he's going to do it, how he's doing, he's a psychologist, he's a forensic scientist, he's a lawmaker, then about Kosovo, then about the owner of Nova S and N1... on the day when a thirteen-year-old child killed eight children and Dragan.
The students of the Third Belgrade High School will gather together with their teachers at the main entrance to Ribnikar today at 14 pm to pay their respects to the victims and their relatives.
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