Status: 25.07.2021 6:08 p.m.
The passengers apparently wanted to go on vacation in their home country Kosovo: Ten people were killed and 44 injured in the bus accident in Croatia. The bus driver was arrested.
It is shortly before half past six on Sunday morning when the fully occupied red coach leaves the Autobahn 3 in southeastern Croatia near the town of Slavonski Brod – not far from the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to the two drivers, there are 67 passengers on board, including Bestian Secaj. “On the bus trip to Kosovo, when we arrived here in Croatia, the bus overturned,” he says. “The driver must have been sleeping for a second, you heard. We somehow fell to the side, and then the bus slid into a pit at an angle on the road.”
Many more victims in the hospital
The bus has a Kosovar license plate and is on the way from Frankfurt am Main to the Kosovar capital Pristina. A route that the bus company based in Gjakova, Kosovo, regularly offers. At least ten people died in the accident, including one of the two drivers. According to the Croatian authorities, 44 of the 67 passengers will be taken to the Josip Bencevic Hospital in the nearby town of Slavonski Brod.
“As is unfortunately to be expected in such major accidents, there are a number of injuries,” says the head of the clinic, Josip Samardzik. “15 people are seriously injured. Two of them are in intensive care. We have already had three operations and some are still ahead of us.”
Driver arrested
Passengers who are more easily injured should – if possible – all be released by tomorrow. According to the hospital, some were already able to walk today. The survivor of the two bus drivers was arrested on suspicion of negligent homicide and injuries.
“The driver said he nodded off for a moment,” says prosecutor Slavko Pranjic, “but that will first have to be determined in the investigation.” The bus went off the road and fell onto a strip of grass next to the highway, the prosecutor said. The scene of the accident is secured and everything is logged so that a possible criminal prosecution can take place.
Kosovar head of government on the way
The Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti is on his way to Croatia and wants to visit the victims of the accident in the hospital in Slavonski Brod together with the Croatian Prime Minister Plenkovic that evening.
Gezim Kasapolli is also there to get an idea. The Kosovar ambassador to Croatia visited the injured in the hospital in Slavonski Brod and then said: “These are our people from Kosovo who work in Germany. They were on their way to vacation at home in Kosovo. That is the information I have right now, but it’s really very difficult to say anything else. ”
No children among the dead
According to Kasapolli, none of the children who were on the coach were on the list of dead that he had. The Croatian Health Minister Vili Beroš said: “There were 15 minors on board the bus. One girl is very seriously injured.” They and the others are looked after strictly according to epidemiological guidelines. “Besides being a terrible accident, it happened during a pandemic. I am very happy with the reaction from everyone involved. The hospital, the police and the emergency services, all of which reacted very quickly.”
It is not only in Kosovo that there is sadness and sadness about the accident. The Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and President Zoran Milanovic expressed their condolences to the relatives of the dead and the people of Kosovo.