Polish police arrested a young man in emotional distress who blocked a ship from leaving the port of Świnoujście. Armed with a knife, he threatened suicide and took control of a lifeboat on the TT Line ferry bound for Trelleborg, Sweden, halting ferry traffic on international routes for over a day.
Police negotiators managed to transfer him into the care of medical personnel. The remaining several hundred passengers on the ferry had to be redirected to another vessel.
According to the Polish state news agency PAP, citing Sub-Commissioner Dawid Woźnicki from the Municipal Police Headquarters in Świnoujście, the perpetrator was taken for preliminary examinations at a local hospital and then referred for further observation.
Sebastian Kluska, Director of the Maritime Search and Rescue Service (SAR), reported via social media that the personnel involved in the operation directed by the Polish Police changed every four hours, and "the aggressor had access to food supplies from the lifeboat."
The man did not leave the deck even when the vessel was already at the pier. Several hundred ferry passengers had to wait until the next day for one of six other connections to Sweden, which were operated by three different shipping companies.
The operation concluded after 26 hours on Sunday around 6:30 PM. The would-be suicide was a Polish citizen, most likely from Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland, according to the local portal iswinoujscie.pl.
"Passengers waiting at the terminal in Świnoujście were taken by the ferry, which departed around 4 PM," added Weronika Gocłowska, spokesperson for the Szczecin-Świnoujście Seaports Authority.
Source:IAR/PAP/iswinoujscie.pl/SAR/X/@KluskaSebastian/@poland24com
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