On Saturday, immediate family members, other relatives, and friends of those killed in the 16 March nightclub fire, as well as other residents of the city, staged a new protest march in Kocani.
Among the banners protesters held were ones reading “Don’t wait for your kid to be next”, “Inspections were sleeping, the children didn’t wake up”, “There is no forgiveness, there must to be justice for our angels”, and “How can we pull strings to bring back our friends?”.
Prior to the protest, parents had said that they were refusing to meet PM Hristijan Mickoski on 13 May, describing his invitation as belated. According to them, they had asked for the meeting to be held in Kocani previously because that was reasonable and justified, especially since some of the parents are not able to travel as a result of the consequences of the tragedy.
The same day, regarding the course of the investigation, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski said from what he’d been briefed, a certain number of witnesses were being questioned.
“I don’t have anything else to add because the investigation’s still underway”, he stressed.
When it comes to patients who suffered severe injuries that previously received treatment at some hospitals domestically and at medical centres abroad, their rehabilitation process at the Clinic of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation has started.
“The process is going slowly, but we are very careful because there is an individual approach, not collective rehabilitation”, the Clinic’s Director, Zlate Mehmedovic, pointed out.
For now, 30 other patients are receiving treatment abroad.