Belgium said it will hold a national day of mourning on Friday for 22 schoolchildren and six adults killed in a bus crash in Switzerland, as the first of the survivors made their way home.
Of the 52 passengers on the bus, which was carrying school groups from the Belgian towns of Heverlee and Lommel home from a ski trip when it crashed on Tuesday night, only 24 survived. Some were still in critical condition on Thursday.
The bodies of the passengers killed in the crash, most of whom were about 12 years old, were all taken to the Swiss town of Sion, near the site of the accident, to be identified.
“The identification process is being carried out one family at a time, and this is a moment of intense pain which can take very long,” Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo said.
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