11 people killed in Morocco stampede
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AgenceFrance-Presse
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 25, 2009 00:00
RABAT - A stampede at a world music festival in the Moroccan capital, which featured top names such as Kylie Minogue and Alicia Keyes, left at least 11 people dead, most of them women and children, police said yesterday.
Some 70,000 spectators were at the Hay Nahda stadium in the southeast of Rabat on Saturday to see home favorite Abdelaziz Stati sing when the accident occurred shortly after midnight on the final night of the Mawazine (Rhythms) festival.
Police said the crowd surging toward one of the exits appeared to have brought down a wire fence, setting off the stampede as the concert ended. Five women, four men and two children were later found dead, apparently having suffocated in the crush. A source close to the case said all those who died were Moroccan.
The interior ministry has announced an investigation. Rescuers rushed to the scene to pull out survivors and transport the injured to Rabat's main hospital, Ibn Sina, where a source said all but seven of the injured had left by yesterday. "Most of the injured are young," the hospital's head emergency care said. Doctors had treated about 20 people and another five were still in care yesterday.
Police said the crowd surging toward one of the exits appeared to have brought down a wire fence, setting off the stampede as the concert ended. Five women, four men and two children were later found dead, apparently having suffocated in the crush. A source close to the case said all those who died were Moroccan.
The interior ministry has announced an investigation. Rescuers rushed to the scene to pull out survivors and transport the injured to Rabat's main hospital, Ibn Sina, where a source said all but seven of the injured had left by yesterday. "Most of the injured are young," the hospital's head emergency care said. Doctors had treated about 20 people and another five were still in care yesterday.