site.btaBTA Director General Offers Condolences in Letter to MIA Counterpart: You Are Not Alone

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev sent a letter to North Macedonia's Media Information Agency (MIA) Director General Dragan Antanovski after the nighclub tragedy in Kocani on Sunday. "Please accept my deepest condolences and those of my BTA colleagues for the victims of the fire," he wrote.

"We have learned from the MIA the news of the many dead and injured and BTA has passed it on to all the media outlets in Bulgaria, which grieves with the people of the Republic of North Macedonia,. Bulgarian institutions and citizens have already expressed readiness to help with everything that is necessary," Valchev added.

"Be strong! You are not alone in this ordeal!", the BTA Director General said. 

Fifty nine people have died in a nightclub fire in North Macedonia. The blaze broke out in the early hours of Sunday in Kocani, a town around 100 km east of the capital, Skopje. Some 1,500 people were said to have been attending a concert. According to local media reports, the fire may have been caused by the use of pyrotechnic devices.