Ivory Coast in mourning after Abidjan stampede tragedy - Zee News

Zeenews Bureau

Abidjan: Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara declared three days of national mourning for the victims of stampede which he described as a "national tragedy".

New Year's festivities in a stadium of Abidjan ended up being a nightmare as 61 people were crushed to death as a stampede broke out early on Tuesday.

Rescue officials said 61 were killed and more than 200 were injured in the stampede and that those killed comprised many children and teenagers. Most of those killed were between 8 and 15 years old.

President Ouattara visited the injured ones in the hospital and assured them that the government will bear their complete medical costs.

The Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Abidjan's Plateau district saw thousands thronging to witness spectacular fireworks held to celebrate the New Year Day.

It was only the second New Year's Eve fireworks display since peace returned to this West African nation after a bloody upheaval over presidential elections put the nation on the brink of civil war and turned this city into a battle zone.

With 2013 showing greater promise, people were in the mood to celebrate on New Year's Eve. Families brought children and they watched the rockets burst in the nighttime sky. But only an hour into the new year, as the crowds poured onto the Boulevard de la Republic after the show, something caused a stampede, said Col. Issa Sako of the fire department rescue team. How so many deaths occurred on the broad boulevard and how the tragedy started is likely to be the subject of an investigation.

Many of the younger ones in the crowd went down, trampled underfoot.

Desperate parents went to the city morgue, the hospital and to the stadium to try to find missing children. Mamadou Sanogo was searching for his 9-year-old son, Sayed.

"I have just seen all the bodies, but I cannot find my son," said a tearful Sanogo. "I don't know what to do."

State TV showed a woman sobbing in the back of an ambulance; another was bent over on the side of the street, apparently in pain; and another, barely conscious and wearing only a bra on her upper body, was hoisted by rescuers. There were also scenes of small children being treated in a hospital. One boy grimaced in pain and a girl with colored braids in her hair lay under a blanket with one hand bandaged. The death toll could rise, officials said.

After the sun came up, soldiers were patrolling the site that was littered with victims' clothes, shoes, torn sandals and other belongings. President Alassane Ouattara and his wife Dominique visited some of the injured in the hospital. Mrs. Ouattara leaned over one child who was on a bed in a crowded hospital ward and tried to console the youngster. The president pledged that the government would pay for their treatment, his office said.

The government organized the fireworks to celebrate Ivory Coast's peace, after several months of political violence in early 2011 following disputed elections.

Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, growing more than 37 percent of the world's annual crop of cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate.

This is not Ivory Coast's first stadium tragedy. In 2009, 22 people died and over 130 were injured in a stampede at a World Cup qualifying match at the Houphouet Boigny Stadium, prompting FIFA, soccer's global governing body, to impose a fine of tens of thousands of dollars on Ivory Coast's soccer federation. The stadium, which officially holds 35,000, was overcrowded at the time of the disaster.

A year later, two people were killed and 30 wounded in a stampede at a municipal stadium during a reggae concert in Bouake, the country's second-largest city. The concert was organized in the city, held by rebels at the time, to promote peace and reconciliation.

With Agency Inputs