All victims of Swiss bus fire identified

All victims of the arson attack in Kerzers FR identified Keystone-SDA

All of the victims of a fire on a Swiss PostBus have been identified including the six people who died and the five injured. This was announced by the Fribourg cantonal police on Wednesday. The suspected perpetrator is also among the dead.

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According to the Attorney General, he was a socially isolated and mentally unstable man aged 65, a Swiss national and resident of canton of Bern, who – according to the state of the investigation – deliberately set himself on fire.

The bus driver also died in the fire, as the Fribourg cantonal police announced on Wednesday evening. He was a 63-year-old man of Portuguese origin. The other fatalities were two women aged 25 and 39 and two men aged 16 and 29, all Swiss nationals and residents of the region.

The injured have also been identified. They are two men aged 34 and 61 and two women aged 27 and 56, all Swiss nationals, and a 32-year-old Kosovan national. Two people, the 56-year-old woman and the 34-year-old man, were still in hospital on Wednesday evening. All of the victims live in the region.

President pays tribute

Swiss President Guy Parmelin visited the site of the fire in Kerzers, Fribourg, on Wednesday evening. Accompanied by his wife Caroline, a delegation from the Fribourg government, and dozens of emergency personnel, he laid flowers and silently remembered the victims.

“Once again we have to experience such a sad moment,” Parmelin said, visibly moved, to the media on the sidelines of the tribute. Following the fire tragedy in Crans-Montana at the beginning of this year, Parmelin has had to respond to a tragic scene for the second time since he started his presidential term on January 1.

Translated from German by AI/jdp

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