The United Nations General Assembly honored the late Polish President Lech Kaczyñski with a moment of silence on Thursday at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Christopher Hackett, the Barbados Ambassador to the United Nations and one of the U.N. General Assembly's Vice Presidents, lead the remembrance.

[Christopher Hackett, U.N. General Assembly Vice President]:

"This is a great tragedy and a terrible loss for Poland whose pain and grief has been shared by the entire international community through a strong outpouring of sympathy."

Kaczyñski, his wife Maria, and 94 other people died in a plane crash on Saturday in western Russia.

The Polish delegation was traveling to Smolensk to commemorate the massacre of Poles in Katyn Forest by Soviets 70 years ago.