The Ivory Coast on Wednesday began
three days of national mourning after a
stampede among crowds gathered for
celebratory New Year's Eve fireworks in
Abidjan left at least 60 dead and dozens
injured.
An AFP journalist saw many injured
children, while images broadcast by RTI
television showed bodies stretched
lifeless on the ground outside the city's
main stadium.
Piles of abandoned shoes and clothing
could also be seen at the stadium, where
soldiers and police were deployed, along
with UN peacekeepers.
"This is a real tragedy on this New Year's
Day," President Alassane Ouattara said at
the scene.
"We are all in shock," he added,
announcing that three days of national
mourning would be held starting on
Wednesday.
The government said 60 people had died,
with an average age of 18. Earlier, the
head of military rescue workers,
Lieutenant Colonel Issa Sako, told
journalists that 61 had died.
"Forty-nine wounded were evacuated" by
rescue workers, Sako said, adding that
other injured victims had gone to hospital
on their own. Another rescue official said
at least 200 people had been wounded in
all.
Sako said the flow of people at the
stadium had caused a "very large crush"
and that "in the crush, people were
walked over and suffocated by the
crowd".
Officials said around 50,000 people had
gathered for the fireworks.
Witnesses said the stampede had broken
out after the fireworks ended, though the
cause remains unclear. It erupted near
the stadium's main entrance, where
security had set up tree trunks as crowd
control barriers.
According to a police source, the crush
occurred when two streams of spectators
going in opposite directions crossed
paths.
A security source added that rescue
services "took some time to arrive".
Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said
the "exact circumstances" of the tragedy
are "under investigation by the security
services".
Visibly shaken children were among the
roughly 40 wounded taken to a hospital in
the wealthy neighbourhood of Cocody, in
the north of the economic capital.
A mother named Zeinab who had taken
two of her children to the stadium found
one of them in the hospital, a small boy
who lay on a bed in a groggy state.
Zeinab said she "hurt all over" and
showed a journalist the scratches on her
body.
"I don't know what happened but I found
myself lying on the ground with people
stepping on me, pulling my hair or tearing
my clothes," she said.
She said she had been knocked
unconscious and that a young man had
pulled her from the crowd.
The New Year's fireworks, the city's
second in two years, had been touted as
a symbol of national renewal under
Ouattara after a violent post-election
crisis that tore the country apart from
December 2010 to April 2011, killing
some 3,000 people.
The unrest began after Ouattara's long-
time rival and former iron-fisted ruler
Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.
He was later arrested by forces loyal to
Ouattara, with UN and French military
backing, and transferred to the
International Criminal Court in The
Hague, where he is accused of crimes
against humanity.
Though the troubled west African nation
-- the world's top cocoa producer -- is still
recovering from the political and military
crisis, Ouattara had struck a note of
optimism in a New Year's message on
Monday evening.
He said the former French colony had
"possibilities like seldom before" ahead of
it, promising it would soon reap the
rewards of economic growth and
development.
No comments:
Post a Comment