Sam Gilang ran towards the exit of the soccer stadium Malanglike thousands of others, panicked when Indonesian police fired tear gas at angry fans, setting off a stampede that killed more than a hundred people.
“People were pushing each other … Many were trampled on their way to the exit,” the 22-year-old survivor, who lost three friends in the tragedy, told AFP. “It was frightening, shocking,” he explains.
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Spectators, including women and children, rushed out of the stadium Kanjuruhanin the city of Malang, in the east of the island of Java.
People were trapped, some were buried by the crowd or suffocated, in one of the worst catastrophes that have occurred in a stadium to date. At least three survivors described the events after the end of the match between the team from the neighboring city of Persebaya Surabaya against the locals, defeated by 3 goals to 2.
Thousands of supporters stormed the field, some full of anger, others to greet their team’s players. The crowd began to move when the police, with batons and shields, tried to get the fans back into the stands.
He then fired tear gas into the stands, opposite stadium exits 12 and 13. Police said “riots” occurred, but several witnesses said otherwise.
“Nothing was happening, there was no riot. I don’t know what the reason was, suddenly they fired tear gas at us. That shocked me, didn’t they think there were children and women?” Doni, a 43-year-old spectator, told AFP.
smoke everywhere
Tear gas spread throughout the stadium and people panicked. Hundreds of people rushed towards the exits.
“There was smoke everywhere … and I panicked. The exit was already packed with people, I didn’t know what to do or where to go,” said Fian, a 17-year-old fan, who also declined to give his last name. Still gasping for air and bloodshot eyes, he remembers the screams he heard: “Go to the emergency exits on the left,” but that narrow escape door was like a deadly quagmire for many. Some of the fans who managed to get out were seen carrying lifeless bodies.
hard story
Abel Issa Camara is a Bissau-Guinean player who is a striker for Arema of Liga 1.
He lived first-hand the anguished moments in the stadium, in which he saw many people die and feared for his life.
“Before the game started, there was already a lot of confusion at the entrance of the opposing team. When the game ended, the opposing players left the stadium in about 10 minutes in armored cars. Meanwhile, we went to apologize to our fans because we lost the derby and it was at that moment when the fans began to climb the fences and the police asked us to go to the locker room because they could lose control of the situation sooner or later,” he told Diario Marca de Spain.
And he added: “We closed in the locker room and the fans tried to get in there, we had to put a table inside to lock the door. It was at that moment when we started to hear screams and shots and see a lot of smoke. In addition, some fans managed to enter in our locker room and they ended up dying right there.
The city of Malang was in mourning on Sunday, with many families seeing their relatives go to the stadium and never come back.
“I have never lived a moment like this, never. We feared for our lives and without being able to do anything we were cornered like rats. In those moments you only think that nothing happens to you. When everything ends, the worst comes, we leave the locker room and begin to see a lot of blood, shoes, sneakers, clothes everywhere, the police commenting that two colleagues had died. I don’t wish this on anyone. Being there was fear for our lives and having 40 or 50 thousand people outside wanting our heads. I saw people die there,” he said. (Erling Haaland, a beast, the three goals against Manchester United, video)(Anal Chinese balls scandal gets out of control: authorities enter the scene)
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