The condition of many of the pilgrims injured in Polish bus crash in Croatia is improving - Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz informed on Monday (August 8). "We haven't had any information that the health condition of the injured was deteriorating, quite on the contrary, everything is moving in the right direction," he told public radio broadcaster Trójka. The accident occurred on Saturday morning when the bus skidded off the A4 motorway. It was en route to the Marian shrine of Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Eleven people were killed on site, one died in hospital in Zagreb and 32 were injured.
Twelve people were killed and thirty-two got injured in Croatia on Saturday when a Polish bus filled with religious pilgrims slipped off a road and crashed near Varazdin.
The tragic accident happened around 5:40 a.m. (0340 GMT) on the highway between Varazdin, in northwest Croatia, and capital Zagreb.
Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz said in a radio interview for Trójka that "the condition of many of them is improving". "We haven't had any information that the health condition of the injured was deteriorating, quite on the contrary, everything is moving in the right direction," he added.
Some of the pilgrims have already returned to Poland and were discharged from a Warsaw hospital after passing medical check-ups.
The deputy minister also said that people who have been advised to stay in Croatian hospitals would be gradually qualified to return home in the coming hours and days.
Przydacz was also asked why the identity of all the passengers still hadn't been fully confirmed. "It's necessary to carry out an indentification procedure here. I wouldn't like to get into the really difficult details, but it was a traffic accident, it was a difficult situation, and therefore the identification is very difficult in some parts," he replied. He assured the procedure was ongoing and any new developments would be reported immediately.
Later in the day, Chief of Police spokesperson Mariusz Ciarka told TVN24 that all victims and injured in the accident had been identified.
Polish Embassy in Zagreb had issued a statement earlier on in which it explained the delay. "The assumptions alone aren't enough to inform anyone about the death of a given person. Same thing with unconscious persons. We can't make any mistakes," the embassy said.
"All families are kept up to date as regards the health condition of patients injured in the accident," Polish Consul in Zagreb Dagmara Luković. She also confirmed that the driver had not been under the influence of alcohol or any other substances. "However, the cause of the accident is yet unknown," she added.
Upon his visit to Croatia on Saturday, Przydacz said there were 44 Polish pilgrims on the bus driving from Poland to Medjugorje, a Roman Catholic shrine in southern Bosnia, including two drivers. Among them were three priests and six nuns.
Police cleared the area where the accident took place after firefighters and medical teams recovered all the occupants of the vehicle which had Warsaw registration plates.
Polish police officers, in Croatia as part of project "Safe Tourist Destination" project, were helping Croatian authorities in communicating with the survivors.
An investigation has been started into the cause of the accident.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP, Reuters