"Final death toll to be announced on Thursday"

"Final death toll to be announced on Thursday"

Vučić said that the final number of the persons reported as missing was 38.

"It is a shame that some people want to see a greater number of deaths. Every name and surname will be available to the public, and also whether they drowned or died of a disease during the flood," Vučić told reporters on Wednesday as he was touring an embankment on the Sava River at Sremska Mitrovica.

According to the latest official data, 33 people died in the disastrous floods that hit Serbia earlier this month. Vučić said that this number did not increase in the meanwhile.

He also dismissed allegations that "corpses are burned in Lazarevac," and that these were the flood casualties.

"Who said there were 500 dead? We do not have blast furnaces in Lazarevac, but what this does show is that we have many people who do not wish well to their country," the prime minister noted.

Vučić said that the death toll was tragically high, but nowhere near that number mentioned by those who "do not wish well to Serbia and its people."

He announced that he would tell a session of the Serbian government which ministers, in his opinion, performed well and which did not, and that the public would then learn about this.

Vučić also said that the citizens in Sremska Mitrovica were not only defending their city and but other towns in Serbia as well.

"We have shown that Serbia can be strong and what we can achieve when we are united. We had a bit of luck, too, because the Sava flooded in Croatia and the RS," Vučić said.

He added that "in the coming years" work had to be done to build embankments where they are missing now - "but barriers weakened during the recent floods must be fortified first."

Vučić said that the government will take on the financing of the reconstruction of categorized and uncategorized roads, because most local governments do not have the money to do it on their own.

The prime minister then said that the mayor of Sremska Mitrovica Branislav Nedimović did his job well - "unlike some other mayors, such as the one in Šabac, who argued that neither sacks nor sand were needed."

Vučić also talked to the citizens in Sremska Mitrovica today and said that assistance must be provided in money and seeds to residents and farmers in the Serb Republic (RS) in Bosnia, and that he would discuss this with RS President Milorad Dodik.