The bodies of the 18 Romanians who died in a bus crash on the weekend in Montenegro were brought to Romania on June 25, two days after the crash, and all of them were identified. Meanwhile, the 29 injured were also brought back home and admitted to several Bucharest hospitals, and some of them are still in critical condition, on life support and in a coma. Romania is holding a a day of mourning on Wednesday, June 26, to commemorate the victims of the crash.

The procedure to identify the victims took around five hours. The team that carried out the identification included eight doctors, out of which two from Montenegro, as well as 40 cops from the Criminal Investigations Directorate, 15 criminologists, and the victims' families. Families of the deceased have already started taking the bodies home for burial, after having been informed by mixed teams of police and psychologists. The Montenegrin authorities agreed to sending the bodies to Romania only if doctors from Montenegro attended the identification procedures.

Romania sent two military planes to Montenegro on Tuesday, June 25, one of them transported the bodies, and the other, the stable patients.

This is one of the largest such actions organized by Romania, and was one of the biggest car accidents involving that many Romanian victims abroad. As many as 18 Romanians died on Sunday, June 23, in a bus crash in Montenegro. The other 29 people on the bus were injured with serious wounds, out of which 7 were in intensive care in the Podgorita hospital, according to the Romanian authorities. The 47 people, including a child who was also injured, were on a tour organized by Mareea Travel, and by the bus operator Gregory Tour. Two drivers and a guide were also among the 47, and one of the drivers and the guide died in the accident.

The Romanian tourists were on a six-day touristic circuit in Montenegro and Croatia, having left on Saturday, June 22 from Bucharest, stopped in Belgrade for one night, and drove further on Sunday, June 23. The Mareea Travel tour operator's representative Marius Usturoi said they have worked before with the bus operator Gregory Tour, without ay other incidents, and that there is no explanation for the crash, as both the bus and the drivers were in the best condition.

The crash happened in Grlo, where the bus fell 40 meters down into an abyss from a mountain bridge, 30 kilometers from Podgorita, where the injured were taken to the hospital. According to eye witnesses, the bus first hit the balustrade of the bridge when exiting a tunnel, then fell, where it hit the rocks, although without falling all the way down to the River Moraca. The area is known as being dangerous for drivers, especially during tourist season, as the road is narrow, and accidents are common.

editor@romania-insider.com