North Macedonia Nightclub Fire Leaves Dozens Dead
By Sinisa Jakov Marusic
At least 59 people have died and 155 have been hospitalised after a fire broke out inside a nightclub in the small eastern town of Kocani in the early hours of Sunday morning, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski told reporters.
Toskovski said the use of pyrotechnics for visual effects during a live concert at the club was the likely cause.
“At the moment when the [pyrotechnic] fountains were activated, the sparks most likely hit the ceiling, which is made of flammable material, and in a short time the fire spread throughout the entire discotheque and thick smoke was generated,” he said.
Video footage of the fire inside the nightclub published on Sunday morning, showing the ceiling on fire, seemed to corroborate the minister’s account.
Earlier, Toskovski said that as part of the investigation into the cause of the fire, the police have already apprehended suspects.
Radio Kocani, which was first to break the news, said the fire at the overcrowded Pulse nightclub broke out around 3am. The blaze started during a performance by a well-known North Macedonia hip-hop band called DNK (DNA in English).
At least one of the band’s members, musician Vladimir Blazevski, known as Panco, was hospitalised, his sister Jadranka Nikolovksa told the local Sakam da Kazam news website.
“I know for now that his life is not in danger. He has burns on his face and hand and is on oxygen support,” Nikolovska was quoted as saying.
In the wake of what is one of the biggest tragedies in the recent history of the country, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski has cancelled a trip to Montenegro where he was supposed to attend a European People’s Party summit. Mickoski headed for Kocani instead.
North Macedonia’s President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova went to visit one of the hospitals in Skopje where some of the injured have been taken.
“I cannot comprehend how it was possible that this happened,” Siljanovska-Davkova told reporters there.
Justice Minister Igor Filkov told a press conference that those responsible must be held accountable.
“This is not just a tragedy. This is an alarm that calls for accountability! There are no words for this pain… but there has to be justice! Something like this must never happen again,” Filkov said.
The European Union’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, sent condolences.
“Deeply saddened by the tragic fire in Kocani, North Macedonia, which claimed lives of too many young people,” Kos wrote on X.
The town of Kocani is located some 100 kilometres east of the capital, Skopje, and has a population of around 25,000 people.
