20 DAYS AFTER THE TRAGEDY Students of Belgrade's 'Vladislav Ribnikar' School Back in Classrooms

(Patria) - Classes at Belgrade's "Vladislav Ribnikar" Primary School resumed today, Snežana Vuković from the Ministry of Education confirmed to RTS.

At this institution, where classes were suspended after May 3rd, when a 13-year-old student killed nine students and a security guard in an armed attack, police presence will be increased.

Classes will be held from eight for the morning shift and from 13:00 for the afternoon shift. Students from class VII-2 will also come to school in the afternoon, she stated.

Vuković stated that the children at this school will have more classes than in the past two weeks, when they had two to three classes per day.

- Today will be different in that students of VII-2 will come to class in the afternoon. They themselves insisted on this in conversations with their therapist colleagues.

We are in constant contact with them. They insisted on starting with physical education and health education classes. Tomorrow they will start with physical education and geography classes. We are proceeding gradually, Vuković said.

She emphasized that if parents notice that their children are scared and do not feel the need to enter the school premises, the child does not have to come to school because that would be "new violence against the child, and no one from the Ministry or professional circles is insisting on it".

- It is important that we have a written statement from the parents that the child is not coming and that we monitor what is happening with them. It would be good if the children had online classes for those who do not want to attend, but the information is that parents do not want classes at all, they want a break and the end of the school year, Vuković emphasized.

She added that it is important that over 750 students attended school last week, as well as around 130 students who were with teachers in activities that did not take place at school.