Guy Delauney
BBC Vulcan correspondent
Reuters
North Macedonia has begun to mourn for a week
Thousands of people protested in the town of Kokani, North Macedonian town, demanding justice and action against corruption after 59 people were killed in a nightclub fire. Most of them are teenagers.
“No one should die like that — there’s no one,” the teenager told the BBC. “These kids, they had a future and they had talent.”
Pulse Nightclub was packed with fans watching DNK, the popular hip-hop band.
Approximately 20 people have been detained for questions about the disaster, including the nightclub owner and former government minister.
Many people in Kokhani believe that corruption has allowed improvised venues to operate with inadequate safety measures.
Parents of still missing children are queued outside the hospital to provide DNA samples to assist in identification.
Kokhani, a town of about 25,000 people, is located about 100 km (60 miles) east of the capital Skopje.
More than 160 people were injured in the flames, including 45 people who were extremely seriously injured. Many of them are taken to nearby hospitals in nearby Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Turkey for specialized treatment.
At the protest rally, the uncle of the 19-year-old man who died said, “These scenes should never be repeated.”
“When there was a war here, it wasn’t too bad. A lot of young people died.”
After standing for a long time in silence, the crowd began to chant, “We seek justice!”
The mourner lit a candle, hugged him, and cried, and wrote a message of sadness in the central square.
A group of teenagers targeted the bar, destroyed the windows, looted it, believing it belonged to the owner of the Pulse Club.
Reuters
Young people attacked a bar that was said to belong to the Pulse owner
The fatal fire began on Sunday around 02:30 local time (01:30 GMT) and spread rapidly as the ceiling is made of flammable material, Interior Minister Toskovsky said.
He said “the basis for alleged bribery and corruption” was linked to the fire.
At the time, he said the venue was well over the capacity of 250 tickets, which sold 500 people.
Officials say the club’s license was illegally obtained and the venue was a converted carpet warehouse, and at that time a single emergency exit was locked.
There were only two fire extinguishers and no fire alarms or sprinkler systems, state prosecutor LJupco Kocevski said.
A group of citizens in Northern Macedonia is calling for people from all over the country to gather at the city centre on Tuesday.
