CASE STUDY: Transporting bodies from Croatia to Poland

One of the worst road traffic accidents in modern Croatian history happened in the early morning of the 6 August. Sadly, 12 Polish citizens who were on their way to Međugorje, a pilgrimage destination in Bosnia and Herzegovina, lost their lives in that incident, on the A4 highway between Jarek Bisaški and Podvorec. Three days later, the morning of 9 August, I received a call from my associate Bartlomiej, from Bongo International Funeral Services in Poland, with a proposal for cooperation on repatriation of nine of the deceased back to their home country. After years of long cooperation on many different cases, we both knew that we can count on the other side to do their job without a flaw. This was an especially challenging job – it involved a large number of deceased, but also a number of high ranking political and police officials from both Croatia and Poland. 

Our team at Princivali International consists of three vehicles and three drivers – all of whom are trained to handle all documents required for repatriation from both the countries, as well as from other European nations. Two drivers are stationed in Dalmatia, while the third is located in Zagreb – allowing us a possibility of a swift response to any case in the whole of Croatia and neighbouring countries. Early August represents the peak of the tourist season in Croatia – meaning that we have a lot of repatriations going on a daily basis, and managing an additional nine cases was no easy task. This is especially true because, in this case, the bodies were located in three different locations, in three different cities and two different counties. Furthermore, government offices are not connected to each other, requiring additional efforts in the preparation of all of the paperwork. However, as we have done so many times since 1981, we successfully kept to all of the agreed deadlines and budgets, and managed to organise everything necessary on our end so that our friends from Bongo could repatriate the deceased back to their families in Poland.

Our team welcomed our Polish colleagues and helped them with everything in Novi Marof, Varaždin and Zagreb. There are no impossible tasks or jobs too big to handle, deadlines that are too short or distances that are to great when you have the experience and the know-how, the will and a team of professionals, like we do at Princivali International.