The Mayor of Gdańsk Paweł Adamowicz has been attacked with a sharp instrument on stage of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity during the traditional "Light to the Sky".
According to TVN24’s reporter, around 8 p.m. a 27-year-old man ran into the stage shouting something out loud and stabbed the Mayor Adamowicz with a sharp object.
Television footage showed the man screaming that "Adamowicz is dead" because his former party, Civic Platform, which held power from 2007 to 2015, had purportedly tortured him when he was in prison.
According to witnesses, the mayor was holding himself around his stomach. An ambulance appeared shortly after and paramedics started to tend Mr Adamowicz. He was taken to a hospital.
Adamowicz, 53, was attending the finale of the annual Great Orchestra of Christmas charity event, in which volunteers collects millions of euros for medical equipment for hospitals.
Local media quoted hospital staff as saying Adamowicz's condition was very serious and he was being operated on.
The services asked people to disperse. There was no access to the stage.
Official reactions
"The attack on life and health of Paweł Adamowicz must be condemned in the strictest terms. I have asked Joachim Brudziński to keep me posted with any and all developments regarding this matter. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mayor Adamowicz," prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki commented.
The Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration Joachim Brudziński commented on the incident in a phone conversation with TVN24. "It was an act of inexplicable barbarism," he said.
"I sincerely hope that we will avoid a dramatic situation and the fight for Mayor’s life and health will end successfully," said the minister.
He confirmed that the Mayor of Gdańsk was in serious condition and was being resuscitated.
"I’m in contact with the police. All details of this incident shall be thoroughly investigated," Brudziński wrote on Twitter.
President Andrzej Duda wrote on Twitter: "We usually differ with Mayor Paweł Adamowicz on certain matters regarding public affairs and how Poland should be governed, but today I’m unconditionally with Him and His Relatives, just like, as I hope, all of our Compatriots. I’m praying for his full recovery,” President Duda wrote.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: tvn24