Krakow attack: Polish unity on show in silent march to honour shooting victims

Thousands of people joined a silent march through central Krakow on Monday night, in memory of those killed and injured when a gunman went on a violent rampage at the weekend.

The crowd were led by Poland’s president and prime minister, the bitter political rivals putting on a rare show of unity after the country’s deadliest attack in modern times.

As they reached the historic Market Square, a bugler played from the tower.

Many people were carrying flowers or candles to leave at the shrines that now dot the cobblestones, each one marking a spot where someone died.

Fiercely proud of its reputation for safety, Poland has been profoundly shaken by this attack. It has left people struggling to make some kind of sense of what happened.

The alleged gunman has been named as 24-year-old Michal Oksinski by local media.

Critically injured in a shoot-out with police, he did not regain consciousness and died in hospital early on Monday.

Initially, the interior minister claimed that Oksinski was driven by far-right, extremist views. The national prosecutor’s office now says that it’s too soon to say he was “inspired” by any ideology.

“The minister wanted to win domestic political points. That’s not responsible behaviour,” Dr Pawel Musialek of the Jagiellonian University suggests, in a country where politics is highly – and often viciously – polarised.

“So far we’ve seen no clear message that this guy was strongly ideological, and that it’s not more like something from the darknet.”

There’s been no mention of any letter or manifesto that Oksinski left. One neighbour told Polish news site Onet that the 24-year-old was a “bit of a loner” but few who knew him well have spoken publicly.