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A vehicle carrying tourists from North Macedonia exploded on a route near Sofia, killing 12 children and more than 30 adults at dawn on Tuesday, November 23. Seven people were able to jump off the bus, which were transferred to a health center and are stable. “This is a great tragedy,” said Norman Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.
At dawn on Tuesday, a bus carrying tourists from North Macedonia and coming from Turkey crashed, caught fire and exploded on a Bulgarian highway near the city of Bosnek, killing 45 people, of which 12 were children. It is the deadliest bus accident in the history of the Balkan country.
From this vehicle there were seven civilians who were able to escape from the rear and were quickly transferred to the Pirogov emergency hospital in Sofia, where they are stable. There they had burns and only one had any physical injury – a broken leg.
The reasons that led to the accident are not completely clarified, but a hypothesis indicates that the group collided with one of the road barriers and the driver would have died first, which is why the doors were not opened in the fire.
“The image is terrifying, I have never seen anything like it before,” Boyko Rashkov, acting Interior Minister, told the press who was at the scene.
“Hopefully we can learn the lessons from this tragic accident and that we can prevent them in the future,” he reflected.
Borislav Sarafov, head of the Bulgarian investigation service, explained that they handle the possibility that this tragedy was due to human error by the driver or a technical failure.
Dhimbje e madhe për 45 jetët e humbura të shqiptarëve nga Maqedonia e Veriut gjatë aksidentit tragjik në Bullgari. Ngushëllimet më të sinqerta familjeve të viktimave dhe shërim të shpejtë të plagosurve. 🇦🇱 është pranë 🇲🇰 në këtë moment të vështirë! @Bujar_O @SvetlanStoev @MFA_MKD
– Olta Xhaçka🇦🇱 (@xhacka_olta) November 23, 2021
Four North Macedonian buses carrying ethnic Albanian civilians had entered Bulgarian soil late Monday after a weekend trip in Istanbul and were heading to Skopje.
The Norman Prime Minister, Zoran Zaev, quickly moved to the scene of the incident and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. “This is a great tragedy,” he said. He also clarified that inside the vehicle there was a Serbian citizen and another Belgian, but did not specify whether they were among the fatalities or survivors.
Zaev detailed a conversation he had with one of the hospitalized citizens who told him that passengers were sleeping when a sudden explosion happened and that they were able to break a rear window to escape.
For his part, Olta Xhacka – Albania’s Foreign Minister – confirmed that the victims were from an Albanian community in North Macedonia. “Great sorrow for the 45 lives of Albanians lost during the tragic accident in Bulgaria,” he wrote through his Twitter account.
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