Six people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in Poland on Saturday when a gunman opened fire in Kraków’s Main Market Square, turning one of Europe’s best-known pilgrimage and peaceful tourist destinations into a scene of terror. Source: OSV News.
Faced with horror unfolding just metres from his residence, the city’s cardinal urged his countrymen to stand together amid “terrible” violence.
“We do not want to be, we cannot be, and we are simply unable to be indifferent at a time like this. We want, we need, and we must stand together,” Cardinal Grzegorz Rys wrote from the historic Archbishops’ Palace of Kraków, located about 80 metres from the Main Market Square.
Cardinal Rys said that anyone could have been walking through the square when the shooting began, passing “through places where bullets had struck unsuspecting, innocent bystanders”.
Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda of Gdansk, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, also expressed shock at the violence.
“I stand in spiritual solidarity with all those who suffered in this exceptionally brutal act and support them with my prayers,” he said.
Horrific accounts of witnesses of the tragedy started being published soon after the event, in a nation mostly spared of such violent terror events and considered one of the most peaceful places in Europe.
“He got out of the car and started shooting at people. He was firing at the outdoor cafe tables, where people were sitting and drinking coffee,” Dominik Bartelak, of Cafe Una on the Main Market Square, said. “Bodies were lying near our cafe. A woman was killed near St Mary’s Basilica.”
The attack began shortly after 3pm, when the man drove into the Main Market Square from the direction of Slawkowska Street and opened fire on people passing by, according to police.
The death toll, initially reported as five, rose to six later in the afternoon. Fifteen people were wounded, most of them seriously, including two police officers. Shortly before 10pm local time, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that the suspect also killed his parents and sister before he left his family home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski.
Katarzyna Cislo, spokeswoman for the Kraków Police, said the suspected gunman was a 25-year-old Polish citizen. Police shot and arrested the suspect, who has yet to be formally charged.
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Church and Poland mourn after mass shooting in Krakow’s historic Main Market Square (By Katarzyna Szalajko, OSV News)
