The Transportation Ministry announced that it stripped the Besa Trans BTB company from Skopje of its license to conduct international bus trips. This is the company that operated the bus that burnt down after an accident in Bulgaria on Tuesday morning, leading to the deaths of 45 passengers.

The formal reason for this decision is the fact that the bus was not registered as a vehicle that is used for transport of passengers out of the country. The company is also ordered to return all the licenses it did have.

The investigation into the disaster, in which 45 passengers were killed, is still on-going, but it is widely assumed that the bus was used to smuggle cheap gas from Turkey, using unsafe canisters which caught fire after a minor accident.