I have concluded a brief emergency meeting with cabinet members and thereafter, representatives of the crisis cell. I want to express from the outset my deep regret, offer my condolences and solidarity with the families of crash victims in Montenegro, to make an appeal to the media, to all those who have taken note of this tragedy. Let's be united, to be united in an absolutely tragic moment, a time when the Romanian society needs solidarity and unity. I want to say from the beginning, and publicly, that I asked the Foreign Minister too, Mr. Corlăţean, to convey our thanks to all the authorities there, to doctors there, to the ordinary citizens who last night and today contributed by what they could to help save the lives of injured in the accident. It is a great feeling of solidarity and, again, I want to say it publicly here and I convey it through all the official channels, our thanks and gratitude to all those who intervened in Montenegro trying to limit the number of fatalities. I also want to say I apologize to the victims' families and, as soon as we will have confirmed information, we will convey them, I do not think it would be good to inform families about deceased or injured, before having a very clear confirmation of their identity. I discussed some minutes ago with Minister Corlatean and Minister Arafat about the main problem postponing the identification. It is given by a situation easy to understand, the victims did not have during the transportation, their documents on them, documents are in the bus wreck, even now, there are efforts from the Romanian state representatives too to recover them from that ravine, as our consular representatives together with police representatives went there.
There are made all efforts to accurately identify both the deceased and the injured. I can just confirm you only one thing which was already public: 18 persons are deceased, 22 are wounded, in various stages and seven are in intensive care, and obviously, the absolutely normal precaution regarding the final situation. I want to say from the very beginning that all procedures and everything that could be done by Romanian authorities, was done and is further done. The most professional and best prepared representative of Romanian authorities for such situations, Mr. Doctor Arafat is there as of this morning to work together with authorities in Montenegro, and also to participate in decisions to be made regarding the moment when we can transport home persons who are now, under therapy.
There are extremely difficult medical decisions, I trust that Mr. Arafat has the greatest competence in this respect and together with doctors in Montenegro; he can make the decisions on the transport of injured in Romania. Minister Corlatean as you very well know, cancelled his participation in the General Affairs Council meeting, where he is replaced by Secretary of State, Head of European Affairs Department, to ensure our political and diplomatic presence in Podgorica, but I tell it again the reaction of Montenegrin authorities displayed an extraordinary solidarity, and I want to thank them once again. With respect to logistic measures, besides the aircraft today, together with Mr. Arafat in Podgorica who tomorrow, after all legal procedures are closed by Montenegrin authorities, will transport to Bucharest, the 18 deceased persons.
We will have prepared tomorrow morning, at the first hour, the Defense Ministry took all measures in this respect, and I thank the Minister and staff of the Defence Ministry, other two aircrafts with all medical facilities to be able to transport to Bucharest all the 22 persons in various stages, but less serious, but including whether the decision is made by the medical staff, by Mr. Arafat and medical personnel from Montenegro to transport the seven too, who are in intensive care, only to the extent that transport, even in these conditions, aircraft prepared with all necessary medical facilities, but again, only if the decision is taken by physicians.
Otherwise we will not force any way as administrative decision. It is a decision that belongs to doctors and I trust that they will obviously make all necessary decisions. Tomorrow, when the plane carrying the deceased will take off from Podgorica, we will notify families and try to organize all the procedures for their identification and transportation to families. To the extent that they cannot make all identifications there, in Podgorica, this process might continue here in Bucharest so that we have, I repeat, 100% certainty regarding the identity of both the deceased and the injured. Obviously, we covered, less important now, but I want to be very clear, all the necessary costs for traveling to Podgorica, transport in Bucharest, and in the country and we take all legal and necessary steps to support the families who were so affected. Tomorrow morning, we will have another Cabinet meeting, this time formal, and if all legal requirements are met, we propose that Wednesday to be declared a day of national mourning in memory of those who died, to support and honor their families and to show that a tragedy may reinforce a sense of solidarity in Romanian society, a sense that, unfortunately, when such tragedies occur, we still very much needed.
I am once again in a position to express regret and condolences to the families. I want to thank everyone from Montenegro and Romania who got involved to save lives, to try to inform as soon as possible to try to help as much as they could in such difficult times, and obviously in the days ahead, as the information we have is one hundred percent confirmed, first, we will inform families and the public opinion.
I want to thank those media representatives who understood and from their own initiative, they promoted the idea that in such tragedies unchecked information can lead to very serious misinformation. I do not want to think about what it means for a family to find out from whatever unconfirmed places that a family member either died or is in a serious situation. We know obviously the list of all passengers, but all procedures performed in this moment, I repeat, should lead to the absolutely certain identification not to err in this regard.
I want to thank everyone who expressed from Romania and from abroad their solidarity with Romania and the Romanian people in these times. There were, of course, positions, I understand that some called the green line with all sorts of things that you could not imagine in a time like this, but I think it is a national tragedy and I think it is a time when through solidarity and compassion we can get together over this situation. This was information that I have and can communicate from cell crisis, from my colleagues who are in Podgorica and obviously as we have other information which may be of a public nature, I will communicate it to you. Thank you!