At least 59 people were killed and 155 others were injured when a fire broke out overnight at a nightclub in northern Macedonia, Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski said Sunday. The fire – the most deadly national tragedy in recent memory – has scared the small country in Southeast Europe.
“The loss of so many young lives is irreparable and the pain of families, loved ones and friends is incalculable,” Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski writes in X.
Police have kept 15 people, including the manager of the club and his son’s son, said Mr Toshkovski, Minister of the Interior. He said that the company that ran the club had no permission. He added that several former or current officials were arrested in relation to the case.
“This license – like many other things in Macedonia in the past – is associated with bribery and corruption,” he said. “But I want to say to the Macedonian public that, unlike other times in the past, people who issue these illegal licenses will be called and be considered responsible for it.”
Mr Toshkovski said that about 500 people were inside the club, but only 250 tickets had been sold from the club to Kocani, which is about 50 miles east of the capital, Skopje. The fire broke through the club in the eastern city of Kocani during a pop concert, he said, adding that the fireworks had caused the roof to catch fire.
A police officer died while he was in service in the club to check on drugs or minor visitors, he said.
Patients treated for injuries were between the ages of 16 and 24, Dr. Kristina Serafimova, a hospital manager in Kocani, told reporters. Many people died in a stampede, he said, as panicked people tried to escape the fire.
“It’s devastating,” said Goran Georgijev, 47, who lives a short walk from the club in a telephone interview. He said that his neighbor’s daughter, who was 17 years old, died in the fire, as did the sons of two of his friends. It was 21 and 22, he said.
“I can’t even pick up the phone to call them,” Mr Georgijev said for his friends and neighbors. “I don’t know what to say to them.”
Mr. Georgijev went to the nightclub when he was younger, he said, adding that he was badly built and had a roof covered with fabric. He said he heard a sound of cracks around 3am, and then the cry of the sirens.
“I knew something terrible was happening,” he said, adding, “it’s a tragic day for all of us.”
The number of deaths can still be increased. Arben Taravari, Minister of Health, told reporters that 20 people were in critical condition and some patients were sent to hospitals in other countries.
And for many in Northern Macedonia, a small country of about two million people bordering Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, Kosovo and Serbia, the fire brought painful memories of other tragedies.
In 2021, a hospital fire for patients with Koranians killed at least 14 people. In the same year, 45 people were killed when a tourist bus bus crashed into flames.
“Every year, we have a tragedy associated with a fire,” Ognen Janeski, who heads a Council of Ethics at the Macedonian journalists’ association, said in an interview.
While the conditions of the fire in the club remain unclear, Mr Janeski said that official corruption had contributed to many such accidents in Northern Macedonia. People are already assuming that it was happening with the last tragedy, he said.
“There is this overwhelming sense of sadness and frustration between the public,” he said. “No one believes in the system,” he added.
Some people were planning links with Serbia to social media positions, he said. More than 100,000 people were held in protest in Belgrade on Saturday for the deaths of 15 people killed by the collapse of a dome at a train station last year. Many blamed the disaster for bad work tied with corrupt officials.
The government in northern Macedonia declared a weekly national mourning period and ordered the inspection of all nightclubs over the next three days.
“All participants in this tragic event and knowingly have helped to endanger human life will be offered before the authorities of justice and will be held accountable,” the government said in a statement.
The fire is one of the many deadly hell in clubs around the world in recent years. The rooms are often dark, full and loud. People can fight to evacuate quickly – or even realize that there is an emergency.
Last year, at least 29 people were killed in a fire in Constantinople. In 2023, 13 people died when a club of a club made a fire in Spain. A 2015 fire killed at least 27 people in Romania and in 2013 killed at least 233 people in Brazil. In 2003, a fire in a club in Rhodes Island, which started from fire, killed 100 people.
Ognen Cancarevik, a Telma journalist, a national television station, said in a telephone interview that Kocani – a small town in an area where many people work in Georgia – were destroyed by the tragedy.
“People are angry,” he said. “People want answers and people want to know who is responsible.”
Young people often leave the country to seek work or higher salaries abroad, and he said, and many Macedonians are frustrated by low wages and corruption.
“The morale is low,” Mr Cancarevik said. “The last thing we need is a tragedy of this scale where young and innocent children die.”
