On the night between Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th of March a huge tragedy happened in North Macedonia. In an eastern town Kočani, Club Pulse burned and fire killed 59 people while more than 150 were injured. Among the ones who died was the singer and professor at the Faculty of music, Sara Projkovska.

The 48-year-old Sara Projkovska was a mother of two teenage children and a professor at the Faculty of Music as well as the backing vocalist for the band “DNA”. Projkovska was a well-respected musician and music professor who had performed on different stages across the world and has cooperated and sung backing vocals for many artists all over the Balkan including her two times performances at the Eurovision Song Contest as the back vocal for Karolina Gočeva in 2002 with “Od Nas Zavisi” and 2007 singing “Mojot Svet”. In addition to that Sara was also a member of the jury of North Macedonia for Eurovision Song Contest 2015. In the night of the tragedy Sara was singing for the previously mentioned band “DNA” alongside colleagues Andrej Gorgijevski, Gjorgji Georgijev, Filip Stevanovski, Igor Velkov, Aleksandar Kolarov, Aleksandar Efremov who also lost their lives. Andrej lost his life after he returned back for the second time in order to save the youngsters who were in the club. Many musicians and North Macedonian artists have expressed their sadness after losing their colleagues including Kaliopi, Karolina Gočeva, Tamara Todevska 

With a broken heart we say goodbye to our friends, colleagues Andrej, Sara, Gjorgji, Aleksandar Kolarov, Aleksandar Efremov, Filip, Igor….
They will continue to live in every song and every heart they have touched through their work. We are speechless with pain!

Deepest condolences to their families and loved ones!
Karolina Gočeva on her social media

 

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A post shared by Karolina Goceva (@karolinagocheva)

I have no words to describe this pain and sadness. I am angry, furious, sad… disappointed.

And I don’t want to choose words and make all of this sound “decent” and “correct”. Because nothing has been decent here for a long time, nothing has a price, and human life is the least of it.

With Andrej I have beautiful moments, joint performances, concerts and friendships… Sara! There is no artist in Macedonia who “does not have someone watching over him”, a soul of a person and a friend. Ficho was an unprecedented talent… Gorgi was our colleague, whose time was still coming…

Leave the “shed”. Let it bear witness to our misery, to collective neglect, corruption. There is no salvation for us.

Great condolences to the families and loved ones of my colleagues, comrades, to all the people who died today in Kocani… until the next tragedy.
Tamara Todevska on her social media 

The club has used the on-stage pyrotechnics which have ignited the blaze and a huge fire engulfed the whole building that forced hundreds of young people to run in order to reach the venue’s only exit and set off a stampede. There was just one emergency exit, which was locked at the time when the performance took place and no fire alarms or sprinkler systems and just two fire extinguishers, according to government authorities. More than 20 people have been suspected from which 15 are under arrest from whom is believed are the ones responsible for this huge tragedy which happened in North Macedonia. Many teenagers were among the victims and the ones who survived suffered severe burns and were sent off to the hospitals in neighbouring countries. Red Cross of North Macedonia has opened the account in order to help and support the families of the victims in the tragedy and you can check out more information in case you want to help by accessing the following LINK.