Croatia and Kosovo act together in accidents, such as the one that occurred on the motorway in eastern Croatia last week when 10 Kosovo citizens were killed, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in an interview with the Kosovo Albanian website Albanian Post.

“In accidents we stand and act together. We showed this not just in this accident, but also in earlier crisis situations and emergencies in the last 30 years,” Plenkovic said.

“Croatia and Kosovo have good bilateral relations and understand each other well because we know how challenging the road to independence and state-building is,” he added, recalling that Croatia had been among the first countries to recognise Kosovo’s independence and was actively advocating its European path.

A Kosovo-registered bus, travelling en route from Frankfurt to Kosovo, ran off the A3 motorway at Slavonski Brod last Sunday. Ten Kosovo citizens were killed and another 10 seriously injured. All Croatian emergency services responded promptly, providing medical and other assistance to those injured and arranging accommodation for those uninjured. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti visited the injured passengers.

“Prime Minister Kurti wanted to visit the Kosovo citizens. He showed great commitment to his people and to those involved in this great tragedy that occurred,” Plenkovic said.

The representative of the Albanian minority in the Croatian parliament, Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj, also provided a great contribution, he added.

“All relevant Croatian services and institutions responded promptly and made maximum effort to help the people involved in the accident, both those who were injured and those who were not,” Plenkovic said. “The Croatian authorities did for the Kosovo citizens what they would do for Croatian citizens” and the rapid response prevented “the number of casualties from increasing.”

An image of the Croatian flag, with an inscription saying “Thank you, Croatia”, was projected on the Kosovo government building in Pristina on Friday as a sign of gratitude to Croatia for helping the bus crash victims.