Investigation of fire in cobs caught up with previous government, the tragedy is already politicized
Less than 24 hours after at least 59 people died in the town of Kochani in northern Macedonia, and over 150 were injured after a fire at the Pulse disco, the search for responsible-from the power that sees mistakes from the opposition time, and the Macedonian president, after she asked why the young were at the concert. An action starts to check all establishments tomorrow, but even before that, both power and opposition have begun to politicize the tragedy.
Seven days of national mourning begin in Northern Macedonia. In Serbia, March 18 (Tuesday) will also be a day of mourning in memory of the victims.
An « informative conversation » for a former minister
The club, a former carpet store, did not really have a legal license, according to Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski (the initial information was for a license expiring on March 24). Former Economy Minister Kreshnik Bucchi, whose time was issued the permit, was quickly summoned at an « informative conversation ». The Macedonian media wrote in the morning that a politician at the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), who was the coalition partner of the former Social Democrats (and before that of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE), had lobbying to obtain a forged permit.
They have lit the roof structure of pyrotechnical agents continue to be the main version of the fire according to the interior ministry. According to the Prosecutor General, Lupcho Kotsevski, the walls and other surfaces inside were lined with flammable materials and there were not enough fire extinguishers.
However, the data remains how many people were inside: According to Minister Toshkovski, they are 500, but the preliminary information from the local media was for 1000-1500 people at the time of the incident at 3 am local (4 hours Bulgarian time).
Fire safety measures were not even on the agenda for the authorities: the Protection and Rescue Directorate was not sought to certify the site, said the director of the service, Jevad Selami. According to him, the building appeared illegally in 1999, it was legalized in 2005, but even as a carpet store did not want a certificate. According to the authorities, there were not enough fire -fighting apparatus. For the last safety inspection, it was taken in 2022.
« We have reason to suspect that bribes and corruption are involved in this case, » the Interior Minister said without providing details, but given that the license was issued with corruption illegally.
Clinics in Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv are ready to accept the fire injured in Kochani, air transport is provided
Some of the suspects were killed in the fire. The fake secretary of the Secretary of State was also detained.
Group members have also been arrested
The authorities are under pressure to quickly find guilty and assure that everyone involved will be held responsible. Northern Macedonia Prosecutor Lupcho Kotsevski said five prosecutors would investigate the incident.
« Currently, there are issues for gathering evidence, » people are being questioned, Kotsevski said, without specifying.
The fire at a club in Northern Macedonia took nearly 60 casualties, the wounded were over 150
Among the arrested are even members of the DNA group, during whose concert the fire emerged and which lost four members in it: vocalist Andrei Georgievski became the victim of the fire, and returned children. Another well -known victim is footballer Andrei Lazarov, according to his team (« Shkupi »), suffocated while bringing others present.
It seems one of the reasons for the arrest is that no written contract was concluded between the group and the establishment.
« The worst battle in my life »
Macedonian President Gordana Silyanovska Davkova, who otherwise called on everyone to unite around the pain and said he could not believe in what had happened, tried to ask the question of what the children were doing in the city with a population of 30,000 people at a concert of a group popular with the young.
In an extraordinary address, Prime Minister Christian Mitskoski stated that he was the worst day in his life and identified the next period for Northern Macedonia as the battle of the honest against the dishonest. In the Mickoski, he also saw the culmination of « a bad, corrupt system that corrodes our hopes, and in addition to our hopes – our dreams. Either we will defeat him or let him defeat us. »
After the opposition called for an investigation and demanded the resignation of the interior minister (because the safety inspection had to be done once a year and the MIA was responsible), Mickski assured that he did not want the case to be politicized, with one party being another for responsibility, as there were honest people in all parties and had to work together. « There will be decisive steps and solutions. There will be accompanies that are not accustomed to, but the changes start with ourselves. »
VMRO-DPMNE often painted in its rhetoric for the seven years of the Social Democrats (SDSM) in power as a time of deep corruption that stopped the development of Northern Macedonia.
