Twenty-two people at least were killed on Sunday in clashes between soccer fans and policemen outside a stadium in Egyptian capital Cairo.
Twenty-two people at least were killed on Sunday in clashes between soccer fans and policemen outside a stadium in Egyptian capital Cairo.
Most of the dead were suffocated when the crowd stampeded after police used tear gas to clear the fans trying to force their way into a league match between two Cairo clubs, Zamalek and Enppi, doctors and witnesses said.
A health ministry spokesman said the final toll was 19 dead and 20 injured. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers between the health ministry and the public prosecutor's office was not immediately clear.
Prosecutor-General, Hesham Barakat, meanwhile, ordered an investigation into the death of the fans.
Al-Zamalek Club fans confirmed, meanwhile, the death of 22 fellow fans in the clashes.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab held an emergency meeting with the ministers of health, the interior and sports to discuss the events, according to Egypt's state-run television.
Earlier in the day, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that a large number of fans had tried to break into the stadium, but the following stampede had caused the injury of scores of fans.
An eyewitness said that around 1,000 fans became trapped in a narrow pathway leading to the stadium gates shortly after 4pm. Many of them had held up their tickets but were prevented from entering as police closed off the passageway with barbed wire.
"We stayed there for a very long time and people started to injure themselves on the barbed wire," he said. "We were stuck inside and people started moving and shouting. So the [police] thought we were trying to make problems, so they fired a teargas canister."
Then, one fan fired back a firework, which was in turn met with more teargas – and a stampede started, which the police met with gunfire.
"After that, people started to run in every direction. They didn’t know where to go. It was a very chaotic situation and they didn’t stop shooting during all this time."
After 10 minutes of chaos, survivors crept back. “The passage was empty,” said another eyewitness.
"On the ground were just bodies and corpses. Some people tried to get inside the passage to rescue the bodies, but the police shot them with birdshot."
Fans responded with more fireworks and stones. When the Zamalek team bus arrived in a police convoy, people tried to prevent the bus from entering the area, and attacked a nearby police car, sparking another round of clashes.
A video circulated online shows hundreds of fans hemmed in by the barbed wire, and police firing straight at the crowd – but the sequence of events is unclear.
More widely, the deaths have revived a debate about persistently aggressive police tactics, and about the logic of opening up football matches, a frequent flashpoint, to fans. For much of the past four years, most games have been played behind closed doors.
Football matches are often a flashpoint for violence in Egypt where 72 fans were killed at a match in Port Said in February 2012. Since then Egypt has curbed the number of people allowed to attend, and supporters have often tried to storm stadiums they are banned from entering.
The public prosecution ordered the arrest of the leaders of the Zamalek supporters group, Ultras White Knights, after Sunday's incident, official media reported.
On their Facebook page, the Ultras White Knights described the 22 dead as "martyrs" and accused security forces of a "massacre".
Despite the violence, the match went ahead and ended with a 1-1 draw.
Shortly after the incident, the cabinet said in a statement that the national league championship would be postponed indefinitely.
