Sylvie Claire / November 23, 2021
At least 45 people, including five children, died on Monday night in Bulgaria in a bus accident that caught fire.
The first information was that the victims were from Northern Macedonia, where the bus was registered. But according to the police, only the two drivers were from Macedonia, the passengers being all Albanians.
The only thing that is clear is that the bus had Macedonian license plates, said acting Bulgarian Prime Minister Stefan Yanev, who visited the scene and declined to give details of the nationality of the victims.
The tragedy occurred around 2:00 a.m. on the highway near the village of Bosnek, 40 km south of Sofia, said Commissioner Nikolay Nikolov, head of the disaster control service, speaking on state television BNT.
Seven passengers were rescued and evacuated to a hospital in the capital, he said.They are two women and five men.
The driver died on the spot, so there was no one to open the doors and allow the passengers to escape the fire, explained the head of the national police Stanimir Stanev on another channel.
The driver died on the spot, so there was no one to open the doors and allow the passengers to escape the fire, explained the head of the national police Stanimir Stanev on another channel.
The bus hit the guardrail for an undetermined reason at this stage. The road had recently been renovated with funds from the EU, of which Bulgaria has been a member since 2007.
Twelve minors, including five children, were on board the vehicle, which came from Istanbul and was heading to Skopje. They all died in the accident.
The survivors are traumatized, they have lost relatives, children. They jumped out of windows, said Maya Arguirova, head of the burns treatment center where they were transported.
The last serious bus accident in Bulgaria was in August 2018, when 17 passengers died while the vehicle was driving in torrential rain with Bulgarian tourists returning from visiting a monastery in a mountainous region north of Sofia.