User:Elena Premate/sandbox5

Daily antiwar street action in Belgrade named "Candles for all who died in war" lasted from October 8, 1991, to February 8, 1992. The action was initiated by Nataša Kandić and Biljana Jovanović.

At the very beginning of the 1990s, the burst of nationalism strained the ties between the republics of SFRY, escalating the first armed conflicts in Croatia and Slovenia. Officially, the war began in 1991 and mass mobilizations took place in Serbia, affecting the ethnic minorities in Vojvodina first. On August 24, 1991, the Yugoslav People's Army deployed tanks to Vukovar. The media under the control of Slobodan Milosevic regime broadcasted images of tank convoys being showered with flowers.

Immediately after the first shots had been fired, the first antiwar protests began in Belgrade. Citizens who opposed the war, and mass mobilization, despite the fact that Serbia had never officially declared a state of war, began to gather on the streets.

In front of the Cabinet of the Serbian president on October 8, 1991, at 8 p.m., citizens gathered to light candles to commemorate the victims of the war regardless of nationality, religion, and which side they fought on and continued to do so in the same place and at the same time, every day for the next five months, until February 8, 1992.