Transport Minister Maja Vukićević said that it is necessary to systematically review all the failures that led to the 2006 Bioča train accident.
She said that this is why the initiative to form an inquiry committee in the Parliament, which would deal exclusively with establishing facts and institutional responsibilities, is justified.
Twenty years ago today, a major train accident occurred on Bioča, killing 47 passengers, including five children, and injuring more than 200 people, the Ministry of Transport reminds us.
"At that time, the largest railway accident in Europe occurred on the Bijelo Polje - Bar line when an electric passenger train, after stopping, skidded off the frozen rails and crashed into the Morača Canyon with four carriages full of passengers. On the twentieth anniversary of one of the worst tragedies in modern history, we recall the tragically killed passengers and the fact that only the train driver was responsible for such a tragedy. That accident remained a permanent wound in Montenegrin society and a warning that traffic safety should not be viewed formally, but as a matter of life and the responsibility of institutions. The memory of the victims obliges the state to do everything possible to ensure that a similar tragedy never happens again," the ministry announced.
Minister Vukićević said that, even two decades after the accident, not all aspects of it have been clarified and that the families of the victims still do not have the answers they deserve.
"This date reminds us of the pain of the families of the victims, but also of the fact that all the circumstances of this tragedy have not been fully clarified. The state has an obligation to face the truth and to review the responsibility of all who played a role in this chain," she said.
He says that the story of the tragedy on Bioč "must not remain just a story, but we are all obliged to do everything in our power to fully shed light on this entire tragic event."
"It is incredible that there was no need to fully establish responsibility for such a tragedy," she said.
The Ministry of Transport emphasizes that without the full truth about Bioč, there can be no closure of that chapter, no trust in the system, and that it is the state's obligation, for the sake of the victims and future generations, to draw clear and lasting lessons from this tragedy.
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