(San Salvador) “Salvadoran football is in mourning” after a stampede that killed 12 people Saturday night in a stadium in the capital, said Salvadoran police chief Mauricio Arriaza overnight.
Nine people died in the stadium, three others died in hospital while at least two others are in “critical condition”, according to a provisional report from the police.
The Salvadoran Football Federation (Fesfut) has decreed the suspension of all matches scheduled for Sunday.
The tragedy occurred when fans “tried to enter” the southern sector of the most popular Cuscatlan stadium before a first division match between local team Alianza and CD FAS in San Salvador.
The president of the International Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino presented Sunday, in a press release, “his most sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims”.
This tragedy comes six months after the tragedy at the Malang stadium, on the island of Java in Indonesia, which claimed the lives of 135 people in a giant stampede caused by tear gas fire from the police. It is one of the worst disasters in the history of sport.
PHOTO MILTON FLORES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Rescuers come to the aid of an injured man on the ground.
When the incident occurred in the Salvadoran stadium, the game was interrupted and hundreds of law enforcement officers and soldiers coordinated the evacuation of spectators.
According to a spokesman for relief, Carlos Fuentes, more than 500 people had to be taken care of inside the enclosure of some 35,000 places, one of the largest in Central America. The 100 most affected people were taken to health facilities, he said, adding that some showed symptoms of asphyxiation and other types of “trauma”.
howl of ambulances
Players from both teams joined in the rescue operations for the injured inside the stadium and on the pitch as ambulances poured in with the wail of sirens.
“I am traumatized to have seen the people on the ground, dead, injured, their faces covered with bruises, because they had been trampled,” testified Fredy Alexander Ruiz, 28-year-old survivor of the stampede.
“I had like five [personnes] suffocating me”, he says: “Thank God I was able to grab the foot of a policeman and they pulled me and a friend”.
Sandra Guzmán, 40, was admitted to the capital’s Rosales National Hospital: “I couldn’t even breathe, they were suffocating me,” she also said early Sunday morning as she left the hospital.
PHOTO MILTON FLORES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A crying woman is held back following the stampede.
In front of the gate, “people pushed me to enter [dans le stade], they didn’t give me a chance to back down, I had a fit, there were a lot of people on top of me. I passed out and when I woke up I was in the hospital,” she explains.
“It’s the first time that such a thing has happened to me… and also the last,” she adds, promising never to return to a stadium again.
“The guilty will be punished”
The Head of State, Nayib Bukele, has announced that an investigation has been opened. “Everyone will be affected: teams, directions, state, ticket office, league, federation, etc. “, he wrote on Twitter. “Whoever the culprits are, they will not go unpunished,” he warned.
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Football (Concacaf) said in a statement that it was “shocked” by the disaster and promised “to provide its full support to shed light on this event and to implement measures to prevent this type of incident in the future”.