On Sunday night in Zamość, an unknown perpetrator set fire to the Sanepid building and the vaccination point. – There was an act of terror – commented the health minister, Adam Niedzielski.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during the Monday briefing devoted to increasing safety on Polish roads, said that “that night (from Sunday to Monday – ed.) there was a very bandit act in Zamość, where the perpetrator set fire to the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Station and attacked, set fire to a vaccination point”.
The building of the Sanitary and Epidemiological Station in Zamość is set on firePAP / Wojtek Jargiło
Niedzielski on arson in Zamość
In the afternoon of the same day, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski spoke at a meeting with journalists in Zamość.
“I really don’t have words,” said the Minister of Health. – There was an act of terror. An act of terror, which is directed not only directly at those who work here or in the district inspection, but it is an act of terror against the state – he added.
He explained that “the purpose of these attacks is to discourage vaccination, and to discourage vaccination with the forthcoming fourth wave only means one thing: the risk of a lockdown, the risk of introducing additional restrictions and creating social excitement.”
– Whoever did it, but I think that those people who also inspired this perpetrator are surely aware that this is not only an attack on the container behind me, but an attack on the Polish state. You have to tell yourself so. This is an attack on our immunity in the fight against COVID, on what will happen in the fall – said the minister.
He pointed out that “at the beginning we had an outbreak of internet hate in networks, in social media, which are controlled, so to speak, by the anti-vaccine community.” – We were dealing with a fake news campaign, a campaign of slander and lies that were simply broadcast into the air. Dementing them, which in principle is impossible with such an abundance of information, led to absolutely no discussion, but led to more and more slander, more and more escalation, also aggression on the Internet – added Niedzielski.
According to the minister, on July 25, there was another stage of aggression, which took the form of physical violence directed against employees of vaccination centers and people protecting the vaccination point. In this way, he referred to the events in Grodzisk Mazowiecki.
Arson in Zamość
The press spokesman of the provincial police commander in Lublin, Commander Andrzej Fijołek, said that the fire first appeared at a mobile vaccination point located in the Salt Market in Zamość, and then in the building of the district sanitary and epidemiological station at Peowiaków Street. – According to preliminary findings, the perpetrator broke a glass in the basement and set fire to the interior – said Fijołek.
He added that no one was hurt in the fires.
The police are looking for the perpetrator of the arson. Recordings from municipal monitoring were secured. According to Fijołek, according to the preliminary findings of the police, the perpetrator may be a man who escaped before the arrival of the services, was riding a bicycle. – We appeal to possible witnesses to provide information to the police, it can be done anonymously – the spokesman noted.
A spokeswoman for the Lublin voivode, Agnieszka Strzępka, said that estimation of losses is ongoing. – The interior of the container, i.e. the equipment, suffered the most because of the smoke, and the vaccines in the refrigerator were most likely damaged – she explained.
Main photo source: Wojtek Jargiło / PAP