The Croatian Government made a unanimous decision at today’s session to allocate three million kuna to the Foundation for Assistance to the Families of Fallen and Injured Firefighters ‘Kornat’, with the funds being secured from the budget reserves.
According to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, the Foundation will know how to manage the funds provided by the Government, as well as the resources that have recently been donated to the Foundation thanks to numerous humanitarian actions and individuals. This Foundation, Sanader added, will continue to operate, and assistance will also be provided to the family of the firefighter who was injured while extinguishing a fire on the island of Hvar. Emphasizing that the families of firefighters who perished while extinguishing the fire on Veliki Kornat expect the investigation into this greatest tragedy in Croatian firefighting to be completed as soon as possible, Prime Minister Sanader believes that the investigation must be conducted professionally and without errors.
Because, he added, it would not be good if a mistake were made due to haste. Nevertheless, he expects that by the meeting of the National Security Council, which will be held next Wednesday, at least preliminary results of the investigation will be known. Interior Minister Ivica Kirin reported on the progress of the investigation, stating that more than a hundred witnesses have been questioned so far and that it has been established that the commander of the Šibenik firefighting unit, Dražen Slavica, did not adhere to the prescribed procedures and that it is still being determined whether there were any other command failures. Kirin reported that due to the tragedy on Kornat, the director of the State Administration for Protection and Rescue, Đuro Poldrugač, has also offered his resignation, as has the director of the Croatian Firefighting Community, Mladen Jurin, who did so earlier.
