They were flown to Warsaw’s Okęcie military airport on Saturday night, a government official said shortly after midnight on Sunday. Deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz wrote in a Twitter post that the injured transported to Poland “remain under the care of doctors and psychologists all the time.”
As to the casualties who are still in Croatia, foreign ministry spokesman Łukasz Jasina said that they had been transferred to various hospitals but declined to specify which ones.
"Now they are all under the care of Polish doctors and hopefully this care will be as good as possible and all this will lead to a happy ending," Jasina was quoted as saying by Poland's PAP news agency on Sunday.
Queried about the condition of the 28 Poles remaining in Croatian hospitals, Jasina admitted that the injured were in various states. “People have very different injuries sustained in the accident. Those who are in a traumatology ward in (the capital) Zagreb, are in the worst condition,” Jasina added.
Twelve people, including the driver, died and over 30 others were injured when a Polish bus slipped off a motorway in northwestern Croatia and crashed into a ditch early on Saturday, local police said.
"A serious accident took place around 5:40 am (0340 GMT). The bus deviated and fell into a ditch off the highway," Croatia's police spokesman Marko Muric said on Saturday.
Sixteen emergency medical teams had been dispatched to the crash site.
Top Polish officials, including the President and Prime Minister extended their deepest sympathies to the families of the victims.
PM Mateusz Morawiecki tweeted that the travelling Poles "were all pilgrims heading for Medjugorje," a Catholic sanctuary in neighbouring Bosnia that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
The group also included three priests and six nuns, according to the Polish Radio IAR news agency.
"All the victims (are) Polish citizens and the bus was registered in Poland" Łukasz Jasina said on Saturday.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is underway. Croatian authorities say the bus driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Croatia has attracted millions of tourists this summer, drawn to its stunning Adriatic coast. About 580,000 Polish tourists visited Croatia between January and July this year.
In July, 10 tourists from Kosovo died in a bus crash on a highway in eastern Croatia.
(mo)
Source: IAR, PAP