site.btaThousands Attend Funerals of Kocani Nightclub Fire Victims in North Macedonia

Thousands of mourners gathered at cemeteries in several towns in North Macedonia on Thursday for the funerals of dozens of people killed in a nightclub fire - the worst disaster in the Balkan country in decades, local media and global agencies reported.

Fifty-nine people were killed and more than 170 injured after a fire broke out at the Pulse nightclub in the town of Kocani during a concert by the famous band DNK. The cause of the fire was pyrotechnic effects used during the concert, which set fire to the club's roof.

Crowds of people dressed in black and holding candles and flowers flocked to the cemetery in Kocani, where at least 30 new graves were dug this week, Reuters reported. At the base of each grave, the victim's name was written on a piece of white paper taped to a thin wooden stick. Priests read prayers over the coffins as they were laid in the graves.

In the capital Skopje, 80 km west of Kocani, about 1,000 people, including prominent musicians, attended the funeral of Andrej Gjorgieski (43), lead singer and co-founder of the band DNK, at the city's Butel cemetery, while another member of the band and professor at the Skopje Music Faculty, Sara Projkovska, was buried at the Lisice cemetery.

The funeral of the young drummer from Strumica, Gjorgi Gjorgiev, who also played with the band on the fatal night, was in the Strumica city cemetery.

At the church in Novo Selo, Stip municipality, the bodies of Filip Stevanovski and Aleksandar Kolarov, keyboardist and guitarist of DNK, were laid out for a final farewell from 9 to 11 am. At the same time, the body of Aleksandar Efremov, who was also part of the band, was at the Holy Trinity Church in Stip, MIA reported. All the dead from the town and the region were buried in the cemetery in Stip with honours by senior clergy of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

There were also funerals of victims of the tragedy in the village of Oblesevo.

The ages of the victims ranged from 16 to 48 years, media in Skopje media said.

Meanwhile, North Macedonia's Health Minister Arben Tavari announced that the driver of the ambulance in Kocani, Ile Gochevski, who transported a large number of victims and died of overwork after the tragic accident, will be posthumously awarded, MKD reported.