Protesters vent fury after North Macedonia disaster

Thousands of people have protested in the North Macedonian town of Kocani, demanding justice and action against corruption after a nightclub fire killed 59 people, many of them teenagers.

“Nobody should die like that – nobody,” a teenage boy told the BBC. “Those kids, they had a future, they had talents.”

The Pulse nightclub was packed with fans watching DNK, a popular hip-hop band, when sparks from flares apparently set a patch of ceiling ablaze.

About 20 people have been detained for questioning over the disaster, including the nightclub owner and some former government ministers.

Many in Kocani believe that corruption had allowed the improvised venue to operate with inadequate safety measures.

Relatives of children who are still missing have been queueing outside a hospital to give DNA samples to help with identification.

Kocani, a town of about 25,000 people, lies some 100km (60 miles) east of the capital, Skopje.

More than 160 people were injured in the blaze, including 45 suffering very serious injuries. Many of them have been flown to hospitals in neighbouring Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Turkey for specialist treatment.

At the protest rally, the uncle of a 19-year-old man who died said “those scenes should never be repeated”.

“When there was a war here, it wasn’t as bad as that. So many young people have died.”

After a long time standing in silence the crowd started chanting “we are asking for justice!”

Mourners lit candles, hugged and cried, and wrote messages of condolence in the central square.

A group of teenagers targeted a bar, smashing windows and ransacking it, believing it to belong to the Pulse club owner.

The deadly fire began around 02:30 local time (01:30 GMT) on Sunday and spread rapidly as the ceiling was made of flammable material, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said.

He said there are “grounds for suspicion that there is bribery and corruption” linked to the fire.

There were 500 people inside the venue at the time, well over capacity for the 250 tickets sold, he said.

Officials say the club’s licence had been obtained illegally and the venue was a converted carpet warehouse, whose single emergency exit was locked at the time.

There were just two fire extinguishers and no fire alarm or sprinkler system, state prosecutor Ljupco Kocevski said.

A civic group in North Macedonia has called for people across the country to gather in city centres on Tuesday.