Polish police cordon off Warsaw square amid reports of bomb threat

Polish police on Saturday cordoned off Warsaw’s Pilsudski Square and the surrounding area of the capital with local media reporting that a man had climbed onto a monument in the square and threatened to blow himself up.

The incident came a day before Poland holds a high-stakes parliamentary election.

Footage posted on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, showed a man standing on top of the Smolensk monument, which commemorates the victims of a 2010 air disaster that killed 96 people including President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria.

Several hundred officers were said to be involved in an operation around the square.

A guest at the Sofitel hotel, which faces the square, said they had been told to only leave the building by the back exit.