The „Nikola Karev" high school in Skopje said goodbye to three of its former students - Marko, Petar and Adam - who died in the tragic crash on Skopje's ring road. „Karev's heart is crying today," the school posted, alongside photographs of them from the time they sat in its classrooms.

The three were only 20 years old. They graduated in 2024 - meaning barely a year has passed since they closed the last page of their high-school textbooks. Entire future lives stretched out ahead of them. Those lives went out last night when a truck from Kosovo broke through the ring-road barrier and hit them head-on.

The school's statement reads: „Our children, who until a year ago walked these corridors, sat in these classrooms and dreamed of the future... it is hard to believe their lives have been cut short." The most ordinary sentence from a school director - and one of the hardest to write. When a school corridor goes empty for the summer, that's natural. When it goes empty because of a crash, that's trauma.

Along with the three young men, the crash also killed the father of one of them - opera baritone Riste Velkov, aged 51. Velkov was a recognised name in Macedonian musical life. His last journey was with his son - and he didn't reach the destination.

The municipality and the school are already discussing how to mark the loss - scholarships, memorial plaques, trees planted in the courtyard. The standard script. But no institution can answer the question that quietly walks the corridors of Karev - could it have been avoided. That question will go unanswered for a long time. And probably never get a clear one.