El Salvador soccer stadium stampede kills 12

AFP | Stockholm

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

Twelve people were killed and hundreds injured Saturday in a stampede at an El Salvador soccer stadium, police and emergency services said.

Authorities said initial reports pointed to a crush of fans who tried to enter Cuscatlan Stadium in the Central American country’s capital San Salvador to watch a local tournament match between teams Alianza and FAS.

The match was suspended as emergency personnel evacuated people from the stadium, where hundreds of police officers and soldiers gathered as ambulance sirens wailed.

“Salvadoran soccer is in mourning,” National Civil Police (PNC) director Mauricio Arriaza told reporters as he confirmed the death toll of 12.

In a statement Sunday, FIFA president Gianni Infantino offered his condolences to the families and friends of the victims, calling the stampede “tragic.”

Among the survivors, Sandra Guzman, 40, left a capital hospital early Sunday with a bandage on her left knee, walking with difficulty alongside her friend, Javier Ramirez, 31.

Both said this was the “first and last time” they would experience such a misfortune because they would not return to the stadium.

“A large crowd of people fell on me. I couldn’t even breathe, they were choking me,” Guzman told AFP.

When she was in front of a stadium gate, she said “people were pushing me to get in, they didn’t give me a chance to go back.

When I came to see, I panicked, I had a lot of people on top of me. “I fainted, and when I woke up I was in the hospital.”

Health Minister Francisco Alabi said earlier that the country’s hospital network was “providing medical care to all patients.”