GHANA: AT 120 PEOPLE KILLED AT STAMPEDE AT FOOTBALL MATCH IN ACCRA'S STADIUM

Record ID: 638434

  • Title: GHANA: AT 120 PEOPLE KILLED AT STAMPEDE AT FOOTBALL MATCH IN ACCRA'S STADIUM
  • Date: 9th May 2001
  • Summary: ACCRA, GHANA (MAY 9-10, 2001) (REUTERS) CROWD OF ONLOOKERS OFFICIAL LIFTING CLOTHS FROM FACES OF THE DEAD AND REPLACING THEM MORE DEAD BODIES WITH FACES COVERED
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ACCRA, GHANA
  • Country: Ghana
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA2GSS4QWP25WIFQSXGGXZRVZAW
  • Story Text: Ghana mourned on Thursday for at least 120 people killed in Africa's worst football tragedy, the soccer-mad continent's third deadly stadium disaster in a month.
    Authorities promised an inquiry into the stampede, which spectators said was triggered by police firing teargas after fans hurled missiles at the end of Wednesday's (May 9) game between two of Ghana's leading teams, the arch-rivals Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko.
    "I have set up an internal probe to investigate this tragedy. We're not going to shield anybody," Ghana's top police officer, Inspector General Ernest Owusu-Poku, told local Joy FM Radio.
    President John Kufuor summoned his cabinet for an emergency meeting later on Thursday (May 10) and his aides said that a period of national mourning would be declared.
    Kufuor, who was once Kotoko's club chairman, was clearly very shaken during a visit to the injured at the military hospital in the capital Accra. An aide said the president had screamed when he first heard the news.
    Brigadier Daniel Twum said 102 dead were brought to the military hospital and officials at two other hospitals confirmed a further 18 dead.
    "Some died of suffocation but the majority seem to have been killed by being crushed," Twum said. He said another 50 people had been injured, but most were not in serious condition.
    Witnesses said that with Hearts of Oak leading 2-1 after two quick goals near the end of the game, Asante Kotoko fans began throwing chunks of their plastic chairs onto the pitch.
    Police reacted by firing teargas, triggering a stampede for the exits in the packed stadium, which can hold 50,000 people.
    Wails of anguish echoed around the stadium as scores of bodies piled up from Africa's third football disaster in the last month and the worst in its history.

    (lh/
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