OWN CORRESPONDENT, Accra | Thursday
A HUNDRED and twenty people were killed and scores more injured in a stampede following crowd trouble at a football match in the Ghanaian capital Accra, local radio reported on Thursday.
The trouble began late on Wednesday after a 2-1 victory by reigning league champions Hearts of Oak when supporters of arch rivals Kumasi Ashanti Kotoko began to rip up seats at the Accra Sports stadium, hurling the seats onto the pitch.
In an attempt to quell the crowd, police fired rounds of tear gas into the stand where the away fans were rioting, Joy FM radio reported.
People panicked and many were suffocated or crushed underfoot in the ensuing rush, unable to escape the trouble and tear gas as the gates were locked shut in the 40 000 capacity stadium, the radio reported.
Witnesses blamed the police action for starting the fatal stampede during the derby match between the country’s two biggest clubs.
No official death toll was announced, but the director of Accra’s military hospital, General Dan Twum, said that 102 bodies had been taken there along with 53 injured fans.
Scores of parents and friends of the victims waited tearfully at the army hospital for news of their loved ones.
Private radio Joy FM put the total death toll at 120, saying that a further five bodies had been taken to a police hospital and 13 to a local private hospital. A further 150 people were injured, according to the radio station.
Ghana’s presidential affairs minister Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey announced that a commission of enquiry was being set up to look into the tragedy.
”Everyone should remain calm and allow the hospitals to do their work,” he said.
President John Kufuor made no official statement but an aide said he had visited the military hospital overnight was ”totally devastated” by the tragedy and had called an extraordinary meeting of his cabinet for later on Thursday.
The radio station broadcast appeals for doctors and paramedics to come to the aid of the swamped local hospitals.
It was the fourth incident of its kind in Africa in less than a month.
In Cote d’Ivoire at the weekend, incidents between supporters and police led to one death and 39 injuries at the Houphouet-Boigny stadium in Abidjan.
At least 10 people were killed and 51 injured on April 29 during a match at Lubumbashi, in the south east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to official figures.
At Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg, a stampede caused 43 deaths and 160 injuries on April 11 when a mass of ticketless supporters pushed their way into the stadium already packed full with more than 60_000 spectators for the derby match between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. – AFP
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