Prime minister calls on people to help save lives

BELGRADE - Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday the number of victims of the floods in the country was significant and called on the people to help save those threatened by the rising waters.

During a meeting of the headquarters for emergency situations, he appealed to the Serbian people to help because those that had been rescuing people over the past three days, especially in the Belgrade municipality of Obrenovac, were exhausted.

"We have suffered a significant number of casualties, but we will not talk about that number and everything else until this is over. We have a catastrophy on our handds in Obrenovac and a very difficult situation in the west and central parts of Serbia," Vucic stated, adding that the rivers Kolubara, Tamnava and Sava were still rising.

The situation with the floods in Serbia is much worse than what the media have shown, he pointed out.

"What we face is worse than what we have experienced," he says, stressing that Sabac has to be protected from the rising water, which is coming from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and will reach Serbia on Saturday.

"We practically have to defend Sabac by employing wartime measures," the prime minister remarked.

Vucic invited 1,000-1,500 people from Belgrade to come to appointed locations on Friday and Saturday, from where they would be transported by bus to help protect the city.

He requested that at least 500 people from Belgrade be sent to Sabac on Friday.

The people's assistane is necessary because there are not enough members of the Gendermerie and soldiers, he explained.

"We are going to defend Sabac with everything we have," Vucic says, adding that tens of thousands of houses are at...