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Poland mourns President Lech Kaczynski
Poland has been plunged into mourning by the deaths of President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of political and military leaders in a plane crash.The jet crashed as it attempted to land at Smolensk air base in Russia in thick fog, killing all 97 people on board. Russian officials have said the pilots ignored warnings from air traffic control to divert to another airport. A week of mourning has been called in Poland where a two-minute silence will be held at noon (1000 GMT) on Sunday. Russia has also declared Monday a day of mourning for the victims, whose remains have been flown to morgues in Moscow. Relatives of the dead have begun arriving in the Russian capital, officials there said. Thousands of people gathered at the presidential palace in Warsaw on Saturday to lay flowers and light candles. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the crash was the most tragic event of the country's post-World War II history. Prime Minister Tusk said the business of government would continue. "We are completely devastated and shocked," Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the BBC. "People have just been to church, to a mass, people are crying." He added: "We could not have conceived a more horrible, poignant, tragic occurrence than our president going to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the murder of 20,000 Polish officers at Katyn, himself dying with his wife, with the army commander, with parliamentarians, with the head of the national bank. It's just beyond belief." The parliamentary speaker, Bronislaw Komorowski, has now become the acting president. "Today in the face of such a drama our nation stays united," he said in a televised address. "There is no division into left and right, differences of views don't matter. We are together in the face of this tragedy." Posted by: Steve White 2010-04-11 |
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