North Macedonia: 59 dead, over 150 injured as crowd smashes city hall
In the Macedonian town of Kochani, a fire broke out in the Pulse nightclub, where a concert by the DNK group was taking place, due to the negligence of the owners.
As a result, all the band members except one of the vocalists and dozens of spectators perished in the fire. Outraged citizens vandalized the club owner's cafe and the city hall, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to preliminary reports, the fire at the Pulse club was caused by pyrotechnics accompanying the band's concert. The club, designed for a maximum of 250 people, was packed with approximately 1500 people—mostly young people aged 14 to 27.
At the same time, the establishment operated with gross violations of fire safety regulations - there were only two warning systems for the entire club, and there were no evacuation exits, no fire hydrants, only two fire extinguishers, the walls were not covered with fire-resistant material. The club itself was officially registered as a retail space for light industry." According to some sources, "Pulse" was owned by an Albanian family.
The fire killed 59 people, including four members of DNK, including vocalist Andrei Djordjevski, who initially survived, but began carrying the wounded and also died.
Among the victims were twenty minors, twenty are in serious condition. The ambulance driver, who had been driving concert-goers to hospitals all night, died of a heart attack after his shift
Bulgarian Patriarch Daniel held a memorial service for those killed in the fire in Kočani at the Sveti Nedelya Cathedral in Sofia. The country declared a week of mourning, and neighboring Serbia joined in, declaring March 18 a day of mourning. Serbia and Bulgaria sent their paramedics to the scene of the tragedy, while Serbian, Greek and Turkish hospitals accommodated the victims, 29 of whom were hospitalized in Serbia.
"Now someone is trying to cover up the crime by politicizing it. There will be no mercy, whoever they are, whatever their nationality, whatever their political party. This is, I would say, a mass murder that someone allowed to happen for money, for bribes, for corruption. And there is no politics here, you will all be held accountable. If they think they are going to play the ethnic card, it will not work," said North Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski.
The day after the tragedy, an angry crowd of citizens, chanting “Murderers!”, destroyed the Classic café, which belonged to the family of the owners of Puls, and threw stones at the Kočani city hall.
The mayor himself, Ljupcho Papazov, resigned and was summoned for questioning by the prosecutor's office. In addition to the club owners, law enforcement officers arrested former Minister of Economy Krešnik Bekteši, Director of the State Market Inspectorate Goran Trajkovski and several other officials.
North Macedonia: 59 dead, over 150 injured, crowd smashes city hall