Surdulica () is a town and municipality located in the Pčinja District of southern Serbia. As of 2022, the population of the town is 9,242, while the municipality has 16,991 inhabitants.
History
Massacre during World War I
During World War I, 2,000–3,000 men were massacred by Bulgarian forces in the town from 1915 to 1916.
1999 NATO bombings
Over the course of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Surdulica was subject to NATO bombings on multiple occasions. By the end of the bombing campaign, approximately fifty homes were destroyed and around 600 more were damaged in Surdulica alone. On April 27, 1999, NATO missiles struck several houses in the southern town of Surdulica. A CNN journalist named Alessio Vinci subsequently visited the local morgue, where he reported 16 civilians killed as a result of the attack. One of Serbia's public broadcasters, RTS, reported that 20 civilians were killed during the April 27 bombings, whereas Human Rights Watch only recorded eleven deaths. Many of the victims had been killed in a single house on Zmaj Jova street, owned by Vojislav Milić. Milić's family and several neighbors took refuge in Milić's basement when his house was struck by two bombs, after which nine people were killed in his house alone. Human Rights Watch published the names of the 23 civilians killed in the sanatorium.
According to the 2011 census results, the municipality of Surdulica has a population of 20,319 inhabitants.
Ethnic groups
The ethnic composition of the municipality of Surdulica:
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Ethnic group
! Population
!%
|-
|style="background:#F5F5DC;"|Serbs||align="right"|16,233
|79.89%
|-
|style="background:#F5F5DC;"|Romani||align="right"|2,531
|12.46%
|-
|style="background:#F5F5DC;"|Bulgarians||align="right"|734
|3.61%
|-
|style="background:#F5F5DC;"|Macedonians||align="right"|31
|0.15%
|-
|style="background:#F5F5DC;"|Others||align="right"|790
|3.89%
|-
|style="background:#F0F0F0;"|Total||align="right"|20,319
|
|}
Economy
The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2018):
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:95%;"
|-
! Activity
! Total
|-
|Agriculture, forestry and fishing||align="right"|55
|-
|Mining and quarrying||align="right"|-
|-
|Manufacturing||align="right"|1,123
|-
|Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply||align="right"|154
|-
|Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities||align="right"|105
|-
|Construction||align="right"|456
|-
|Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles||align="right"|515
|-
|Transportation and storage||align="right"|170
|-
|Accommodation and food services||align="right"|164
|-
|Information and communication||align="right"|29
|-
|Financial and insurance activities||align="right"|23
|-
|Real estate activities||align="right"|-
|-
|Professional, scientific and technical activities||align="right"|108
|-
|Administrative and support service activities||align="right"|60
|-
|Public administration and defense; compulsory social security||align="right"|358
|-
|Education||align="right"|362
|-
|Human health and social work activities||align="right"|507
|-
|Arts, entertainment and recreation||align="right"|107
|-
|Other service activities||align="right"|58
|-
|Individual agricultural workers||align="right"|13
|- class="sortbottom"
|Total||align="right"|4,346
|}
Education
There are two primary schools in the town of Surdulica - Vuk Karadžić and Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, and several schools in the villages around the town. There are three secondary schools: Svetozar Marković Gimnazija (Grammar School), Josif Pančić School of Agriculture and a technical college, Nikola Tesla. In line with falling population in the municipality of Surdulica the number of high school students is also falling.
Sports
The local football team is FK Radnik Surdulica, which play in the Serbian SuperLiga.
See also
- List of places in Serbia
Notes and references
;Notes
- Zmaj Jova street is named after Jovan Jovanović Zmaj. Serbian variations of nouns are such that the street is spelled as "Zmaj Jove" (as opposed to having an "a" letter at the end) in the context of the sentence in the OK Radio article on the Milić family from Surdulica.