Categories: Sports

AFCON:Eight killed ,many injured during stampede at Cameroon stadium

At least eight people have been killed and 38 injured in a crush outside an Africa Cup of Nations football match in Cameroon.

Videos showed screaming fans being crushed at an entry gate to the Paul Biya stadium in the capital Yaoundé.

Witnesses described chaotic scenes outside the ground as thousands of fans struggled to get access.

Two children, aged six and 14, are among the dead, and seven people were seriously injured.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya ordered an investigation into the “tragic incident”. The Confederation of African Football (Caf) has also launched its own investigation.

Officials said about 50,000 people tried to attend the match.

Nick Cavell, a producer for BBC Africa Sport, was at the match and says news of the crush did not seem to filter through to the crowd until there were reports on social media.

Images on social media show fans clambering over fences, rushing past checkpoints and trampling on unconscious supporters. Others show some trying to resuscitate their fellow fans.

Danish journalist Buster Emil Kirchner described seeing “a lot of chaos” as fans clamoured to enter the ground through a single open gate.

“It was hectic – people running, people climbing fences, people breaking through the barricades,” he told the BBC.

Another journalist, Leocadia Bongben, saw a commotion coming from one of the fan zone areas outside the stadium.

“People started shouting,” she told the BBC’s Newsday programme. “A minute after that an ambulance came to the stadium, but when we got to the place the police would not allow us to get close to where the stampede was.

“It’s really quite a sad situation that people go to watch a game and they end up dying there.”

Some of the injured were in a “desperate condition”, nurse Olinga Prudence told the Associated Press.

-BBC