The Fire and the Fury: North Macedonia Mourns – and Rages – After a Devastating Blaze

Andrej Gjorgieski, the lead singer of the popular North Macedonian hip-hop band DNK, was performing in mid-March at the Pulse nightclub in Kočani, a town of 30,000 residents 60 miles east of the capital, Skopje, when the roof caught fire.

He told the audience to get out. Once outside, he ran back in to rescue more people but died along with 59 others as the blaze engulfed the warehouse. Among the dead were the band’s backup singer, keyboardist, and drummer.

He “died a true hero,” his manager told the Independent.

After the fire, the mourning began. Funerals, which took place in multiple cities, were marked by closed stores and roads, moments of silence, and thousands of mourners for the victims, who were between 16 and 24 years old.

With a death toll of 60 and 200 more injured, there is almost no one in the Balkan nation of about 2 million people who has not been affected by the disaster, wrote the Associated Press.

And along with the mourning, the fury ignited.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in multiple protests over the ensuing weeks demanding accountability, akin to the ongoing mass protests rocking Serbia and threatening to bring down the government there after the collapse of a canopy at a train station in Novi Sad that killed 16 in November.

And, like in Serbia, demonstrators blamed the nightclub fire on corruption and nepotism.

“I want everyone who helped this place carry on with its business to be jailed,” 16-year-old Jovan told the Guardian as he joined other protestors in Kočani’s central square. “We need change because this is a corrupt country.”

Afterward, the demonstrators ransacked a cafe believed to belong to the owner of the nightclub.

Officials said that the club was operating illegally with an invalid license it obtained from the country’s economy ministry with a bribe.

They also reported that former city officials of Kočani had rejected authorizing a permit for the club because it failed to meet safety standards. The building had no fire alarm system, only two fire extinguishers, and a ceiling made of highly flammable material. It only had one functional exit.

The fire broke out after sparks from pyrotechnics set the ceiling on fire. Many of the victims died in the ensuing crowd crush as panic-stricken people attempted to escape through the single exit, the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, the number of people inside the club was at least double its official capacity of 250.

“I will have no mercy,” the country’s prime minister, Hristijan Mickoski, said after the fire. “There is no person in Macedonia who is not broken and with a destroyed spirit after this.”

To date, 34 people remain in custody in connection with the fire, including high-ranking government officials such as the former finance minister, the manager of the club, and seven senior police officials. Some of the charges carry 20-year sentences.

Over the weekend, prosecutors announced another 19 suspects, again including high-ranking officials, the Sarajevo Times reported.

Those found responsible will face justice, said the prime minister as he declared seven days of national mourning for the victims of the fire: “Regardless of who they are, from which institution, from what level, from which party and profession.”

A few days after the fire, authorities increased inspections of nightclubs across the country. Officials said they found that only 12 licenses had been issued in 2024, even though there are dozens of venues across the country.

Despite the protests and the anger, analysts said there is little chance that the accident will destabilize the right-wing coalition government, which has been led by the VMRO-DPMNE party since June 2024, mainly because officials, unlike in Serbia, were quick to act – and mourn – along with the public.

“We are all in shock,” President Gordana Davkova-Siljanovska said in an address to the nation after the fire. “And I am shocked myself, as a mother, as a person, as a president.”