Adventist Youth MusiciansKilled in Moldova Crash

Three Seventh-day Adventists from Moldova, along with another young musician, were among those killed June 1 when the small bus in which they were riding collided with a tanker truck on a rural road. The truck driver also perished.

Deceased are Tatiana Catana and Viorica Ciobanu, two young musicians; Olga Jentimir, a spouse of one of the musicians and mother of another musician. Her son, Andrei Jentimir, was also a passenger in the minibus, and suffered a broken leg and arm, among other injuries. The tragedy also took the life of 12-year-old Artur Barba, who was not an Adventist but played in the orchestra.

The victims were from the Seventh-day Adventist church in Ivanovca Nouă, Moldova, and were returning from a funeral that had been held in the city of Ialoveni.

On Monday, June 4, a crowd of 1,500 gathered at the Adventist chapel in Ivanovca Nouă to pay their final respects to those who perished. Musicians from the adjacent village Singereii Noi also saluted the victims.

A rescue team and eight emergency cars arrived at the accident scene and transported 11 wounded musicians to the hospital, four of them in very serious condition days after the crash. Moldova was stunned by the severity of the crash, and media reports were filled with details for several days.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The country has a population estimated at 4.1 million, and according to world church statistics there are 10,748 Seventh-day Adventist Church members worshipping in more than 150 congregations.
—Brent Burdick, Euro-Asia Division, with Adventist World staff