Two people have been crushed to death in Zimbabwe in a stampede at the end of the country’s main agricultural show, reports said on Sunday.
The two, including a young boy, died when people jostled to leave the venue of a fireworks display traditionally held to mark the end of the six-day show in the capital, according to the official Sunday Mail. The two stampede victims were not related.
The mother of the dead boy had been separated from him earlier in the evening in the packed stadium where the display was being held. He was later caught up in the rush to leave the grounds soon after the fireworks, resulting in him being trampled, the paper said.
The show, officially opened on Friday by Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, is meant to showcase Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, which has suffered a knock from years of poor rains and a controversial programme of land redistribution.
There was anger at this year’s show when price-control authorities abruptly cancelled a cattle auction, apparently fearing the high prices the beasts were likely to fetch would make a mockery of the meat prices set by President Robert Mugabe’s government. — Sapa-dpa