Human rights activist Aida Corovic told N1 on Wednesday that the way young people are being recruited by extremist organizations in Belgrade reminds her of the way young Muslim men were recruited to wage war in Syria.

Corovic was assaulted twice in the past few days, weeks after she was arrested for pelting eggs at a mural of convicted war criminal General Ratko Mladic in central Belgrade. Her arrest was followed by a protest during which police in riot gear separated protesters and right-wing extremists.

“I had a police escort for two years because I kept warning that young people from the Sandzak (region of western Serbia with a large Muslim population) were recruited to go to Syria. That very much reminds me of this situation, these children are being recruited in almost the same way,” she said on the N1 morning show.

She said that the two recent assaults on her were perpetrated by hooligans guarding the Mladic mural. On both occasions, very young men approached her and poured Coca-Cola and Fanta over her head. According to her, these are children from the margins of society who “know absolutely nothing but have been brainwashed and were turned into clay pigeons”.

She said that the police told her that these were boys who were just barely of age that someone had obviously worked on. “It’s evident that someone told those children that Ratko Mladic is a hero, that some bitches were throwing eggs at our hero who defended the Serbs,” she said.