Solidarity citizens united in helping those affected in Kocani
In addition to media attention, true heroes also turned out to be all the citizens who, through hundreds of thousands of posts on social networks, pictures, videos, contacts for accommodation and help numbers, proved that Macedonia can be united and undivided.
Macedonia is in great shock caused by the tragedy that occurred at the "Pulse" disco in Kocani, where on Sunday at around 2 am a fire broke out in which 59 young people lost their lives and over 150 were slightly or seriously injured, and important information regarding the fire in the disco began to be published on social networks with great speed, which helped to timely alert the public about the accident.
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A tragic morning for Macedonia
On Sunday, March 16, Macedonia woke up in shock. The news of the enormous tragedy that killed 59 people and affected millions was received with sadness and disbelief. Panic prevailed throughout the country, thousands of medical personnel, doctors and nurses, the army, and the police were mobilized.
In front of the City General Hospital "8 Septemvri" and other clinics throughout the capital, helicopters and dozens of ambulance vans began arriving early in the morning. Young people were arriving, some of them minors, but more and more cars were also arriving from Kocani, Shtip, Vinica and other cities. Parents and relatives were getting out of the cars, who had greeted their children the night before, kissed them and sent them off to a party, and less than eight hours later they had no information whether their children were healthy or injured, lying in the hospital in Kocani, or had been transferred to one of the Skopje clinics, and unfortunately there were also parents who had not received any information about whether their child was even alive.
The screams and despair in front of Skopje hospitals left no one indifferent, leaving a mark on everyone present in front of the emergency centers, and words that could express the pain of the parents of the deceased still do not exist.
"Free Press" is closely following the development of this tragic event and the way the state will face and deal with this tragedy.
The Government and the Macedonian Red Cross immediately issued announcements and statements on Sunday morning, claiming that they had all the necessary and essential supplies such as blankets, gauze, bandages, and hospital beds to professionally deal with the huge number of injured and hospitalized people who were arriving at hospitals in Skopje by ambulance.
However, despite the sufficient amount of reserves, citizens took the initiative and began bringing blankets, water, pillows, and everything else needed to hospitals across the country where the injured are being treated, and several donation numbers also appeared.
The eyes of Europe are on Kocani, the people united like never before
The tragedy was of such great proportions that it caused information about this event with enormous human losses to reach almost the entire world. Media from all over Europe, Australia, the United States reported on the accident that devastated Kocani, but also all of Macedonia.
Apart from media attention, all Macedonians turned out to be true heroes who, through hundreds of thousands of posts on social networks, pictures, videos, contacts for accommodation and help numbers, proved that Macedonia can be united and undivided.
The Macedonian people have once again shown that they know how to come together and help when it is most difficult, after immediately after the fire broke out in Kocani, early in the morning, videos and photos began to spread "virally" on social networks, which raised the public to their feet and proved to be the greatest source of information in these crucial moments, especially for those people who could not be identified, or for parents who cannot find out in which hospital their children were hospitalized, and there were, unfortunately, too many of them.
(Un)peaceful student class at UKIM
Young people and students have begun to express their dissatisfaction with the system on social media like never before, demanding justice for those who died in the fire, aged 14 to 25, who are almost their generational peers or younger.
The culmination of the student dissatisfaction was reached yesterday afternoon, at the student class held on the campus plateau of the Faculty of Law, Philosophy, Philology and Economics, where the highest body of the most famous state university, the Rectorate of the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius, is also located. The young people of Kočani, in turn, expressed their dissatisfaction through the shouts of "murderers" and "justice" at the large gathering in the City Park, which then continued to several other locations in the city.
The aim of yesterday's student class was to gather the students, observe seven minutes of silence and sign the books of condolence to send a final greeting to the dead. The crowd numbered several thousand people, and shortly after the gathering began, the rector of UKIM Biljana Angelova and the Minister of Education Vesna Janevska gave their addresses.
Their speeches from the improvised platform were interrupted several times due to the deteriorating health of some of those present, and huge dissatisfaction among the students was caused when Minister Janevska began quoting the poem "In Silence" by Aco Shopov, which, according to many of those present, changed the course of this student class and turned it into a political gathering. The rebellion continued after the event, on social networks, which were a hotbed of dissatisfaction, which caused a direct apology from the University Student Assembly as the organizers of the student class on the plateau at UKIM.
Also, social networks were the zenith from where all the initiatives for gatherings across the country began, in order for citizens and students to express their pain, sadness, but also anger towards the system, demanding justice and accountability for all who allowed this unfortunate event to happen. Macedonians are uniting against corruption, which they describe on the streets and on social networks as the cancer of society, something that kills us from within, the despicable desire for profit at any cost, even at the cost of human lives, a goal for which another 59 innocent lives were lost on Saturday.
Assistance and accommodation throughout Europe for the parents of the injured
After the Government announced that the most critical patients would be sent for treatment in neighboring, but also more distant countries across Europe, Macedonians spread throughout Europe united "as one", the digital world began an avalanche of announcements for help, contacts and addresses for accommodation for the families of the hospitalized and injured.
The mailbox on the social networks of "Sloboden Pechat" began to receive thousands of messages per minute, messages offering help of every type, such as free psychological help, paid court costs and free accommodation in Skopje. Minutes after the publication of the lists of countries and cities where the injured would go for treatment, hundreds of messages and phone numbers began to arrive from people offering free accommodation for the parents of the injured who would fly to Sofia, Belgrade, Budapest, Thessaloniki, Istanbul and other cities.
The Internet was so "loaded" with messages and link addresses for help that it was physically impossible to process them all, but citizens once again found a productive solution and created a single link address with a table on which hundreds, if not thousands of data on accommodations and contacts for accommodation throughout Europe, including Macedonia, were neatly recorded.
Social media actively searched for the injured, for whom there was no information, and thanks to the thousands of sharing and forwarding of messages and photos, a large number of the injured were found and located, but unfortunately, when they were found, it was learned that some of them had ended fatally, with death.
Unfortunately, today 59 families are waiting for the autopsy to be completed so that they can bury the bodies of their loved ones in a dignified and respectable manner, millions of others are awaiting justice, vigilantly following all statements by members of the Government, and students want changes, announcing a huge number of rallies across student campuses, and the informal group "Who's Next" announced and called on all citizens to a public gathering to be held tonight at the city square "Macedonia".
Social networks have proven their power in these tragic moments and have proven that their speed of information dissemination is of the utmost importance. They are one of the main reasons why the identities of many of the injured were found, those for whom there was no information about where they were hospitalized were located, and through them, accommodation was found for the parents of the victims and the injured in Macedonia and across Europe as quickly as possible. Solidarity fellow citizens, diasporas and other humane people from the region, united in grief, showed their power to help those affected by the tragedy.
