6 people, mostly teenagers, killed in Italy nightclub stampede

ROME -- Six people, including 5 teenagers, were crushed to death in the early hours of Saturday in a stampede at a packed nightclub, officials said.

Fire brigades said the stampede took place in the Lanterna Azzurra nightclub in the town of Corinaldo, near Ancona, on the Adriatic coast, where rapper Sfera Ebbasta was performing.

Three girls, two boys and a mother who had accompanied her child to the event, died in the incident. More than 100 other people were injured, including a dozen who were seriously hurt.

The local fire brigade said someone might have sprayed a substance like pepper spray into the crowd, triggering a panicked rush to the emergency exits.

La Repubblica newspaper quoted a survivor as saying that at least one of the exits was blocked. Another eyewitness said a wall inside the club had collapsed in the melee.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

52 dead in Ethiopia festival stampede

Fifty-two people died on Sunday at a religious festival in Ethiopia to celebrate the end of the rainy season after police fired tear gas at protesters triggering a stampede.

Violence broke out at the gathering in the town of Bishoftu near the capital Addis Ababa due to the actions of "irresponsible forces", the regional government said in a statement, adding that "as a consequence, 52 people died in this crush."

Opposition groups had said they believed more than 100 people had been killed in the chaos after thousands of people gathered at a sacred lake for the Irreecha (thanksgiving) ceremony, in which the Oromo community marks the end of the wet weather.

Ethiopia is facing its biggest anti-government unrest in a decade and some festival participants had crossed their wrists above their heads, a gesture that has become a symbol of protest by the Oromo community, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

"The annual Irreecha festival has been disrupted due to a violence created by some groups... Loss of lives has occurred due to a stampede," said a government statement published by state media earlier.

Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, told AFP there had been many fatalities.

"Bodies are being collected by the government. But what I hear from people on the ground is that the number of dead is more than one hundred," said Gudina.

Sunday's event quickly degenerated into violence, with protesters throwing stones and bottles and security forces responding with baton charges and tear gas grenades, with some reports of gunfire.

- 'Days of rage' -

The police action sent people fleeing in panic with many falling on top of each other into a ditch.

Police demanded that AFP's photographer leave the scene, where rubber bullets were seen strewn on the ground.

Oromo activists called for "five days of rage" to protest the deaths while a strong police presence was visible as the news of the day's events spread.

"This government is a dictatorship, there is no equality or freedom of speech. There is only TPLF. That's why we must protest today," said Mohamed Jafar, referring to the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front.

In 1991 the TPLF, then a rebel group, overthrew Mengistu Haile Mariam's dictatorship and now, as a political party stands accused of monopolising power.

Every year millions of people in the Oromo region mark the Irreecha festival on the shores of Lake Harsadi, which they consider sacred.

The anti-government protests started in the central and western Oromo region in 2015 and spread in recent months to the northern Amhara region.

"For the last 25 years the Oromo people have been marginalised in many things. Today we come together as one to chant for our freedom," said one of the people at the festival, Habte Bulcha.

Together, Oromos and Amharas make up 60 percent of the population of the Horn of Africa nation and have become increasingly vocal in rejecting what they see as the disproportionate power wielded by the northern Tigrean minority in government and the security forces.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Witnesses blame Saudi officials for hajj horror

MINA, Saudi Arabia - Witnesses to a stampede that left more than 700 people dead at the hajj in Saudi Arabia on Thursday blamed Saudi authorities and said they were afraid to continue the rituals.

The worst tragedy in 25 years at the annual Muslim pilgrimage occurred during the symbolic stoning of the devil at Mina, just outside the holy city of Mecca.

At least 717 people were killed and 863 people were hurt, spurring King Salman to order "a revision" of hajj organisation while authorities started a probe into the disaster.

One minister blamed the pilgrims for the tragedy, but worshippers disagreed.

"There was crowding. The police had closed all entrances and exits to the pilgrims' camp, leaving only one," said Ahmed Abu Bakr, a 45-year-old Libyan who escaped the stampede with his mother.

"I saw dead bodies in front of me and injuries and suffocation. We removed the victims with the police."

He added that police at the scene appeared inexperienced.

"They don't even know the roads and the places around here," he said as others nodded in agreement.

Pilgrims in Mina stay in a complex of white fireproof tents big enough to hold more than two million people, and the interior ministry said it deployed 100,000 police to secure the hajj, maintain safety and manage traffic and crowds.

 - 'Don't have a clue' -

One outspoken critic of redevelopment at the holy sites said despite the large numbers, police were not properly trained and lacked the language skills for communicating with foreign pilgrims, who make up the majority of those on the hajj.

"They don't have a clue how to engage with these people," said Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Mecca-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation.

"There's no crowd control," Alawi said.

Another witness, 39-year-old Egyptian Mohammed Hasan, voiced worries that a similar incident "could happen again".

"You just find soldiers gathered in one place doing nothing," he said.

He also alleged that he had been insulted because of his nationality, when security men asked him to "come identify this Egyptian corpse".

"Why are they humiliating us like this? We are coming as pilgrims asking for nothing," Hasan said angrily, urging the security forces to "organise the roads" to ensure the smooth movement of people.

Even before Thursday's stoning tragedy, other pilgrims had complained of a lack of organisation.

Thursday's tragedy occurred outside the five-storey Jamarat Bridge, which was erected in the last decade at a cost of more than $1 billion and intended to improve safety.

Almost one kilometre (less than a mile) long, the Jamarat Bridge allows 300,000 pilgrims an hour to carry out the ritual, in which they throw pebbles against walls.

- 'No organisation' -

Interior ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki said the stampede was caused when "a large number of pilgrims were in motion at the same time" at an intersection of two streets in Mina.

"The great heat and fatigue of the pilgrims contributed to the large number of victims," he said.

And one Saudi minister blamed the pilgrims for the tragedy, saying they had not followed hajj rules.

But in the view of an Egyptian worshipper who identified himself only by his first name Ahmed, "the fault is not on the pilgrims".

"Saudi Arabia is spending a lot on hajj but there is no organisation," he said, complaining that the flow of people into and out of the tent camp needed to be better managed.

"They could make one road for those going and another for those returning," Ahmed said.

"If one policeman would stand at the start of every road and organise the pilgrims, none of this would happen."

The stoning ritual is supposed to continue on Friday and Saturday, but pilgrims said they were fearful of a repeat of Thursday's deaths. Some put their faith in God, saying he would protect them.

"Of course we are afraid of tomorrow," said Hasan, the Egyptian pilgrim. "I want to go do the stoning at night. I asked a cleric, he said it's OK."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Death toll at Saudi haj crush rises to 310 - Saudi civil defence

DUBAI - The death toll from a crush of pilgrims on Thursday during the annual Muslim haj in Saudi Arabia has risen to 310 people of various nationalities, the Saudi civil defence said.

It said that civil defence teams were still trying to deal with the disaster, caused by large numbers of people pushing at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Another 450 pilgrims were wounded, it said.

The pilgrimage, the world's largest annual gathering of people, has been the scene of deadly disasters in the past, including stampedes, tent fires and riots.

The last major incident in haj took place in 2006, when at least 346 pilgrims were killed as they attempted to perform the stoning of the devil at Jamarat.

However, massive infrastructure upgrades and extensive spending on crowd control technology over the past two decades had made such events far less common.

Street 204 is one of the two main arteries leading through the camp at Mina to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles at three large pillars.

Reuters reporters in another part of Mina said they could hear police and ambulance sirens, but that roads leading to the site of the disaster had been blocked to prevent a further crowds developing.

Photographs published on the civil defence Twitter feed showed pilgrims lying on stretchers while emergency workers in high-visibility jackets lifted them into an ambulance.

It said more than 220 ambulances and 4,000 rescue workers had been sent to the stampede's location to help the wounded. Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television channel showed a convoy of ambulances driving through the Mina camp.

"Work is underway to separate large groups of people and direct pilgrims to alternative routes," the Saudi Civil Defence said on its Twitter account.

Thursday is also Eid al-Adha, when Muslims slaughter a sheep. It has traditionally been the most dangerous day of haj because vast numbers of pilgrims attempt to perform rituals at the same time in a single location.

Two weeks ago 110 people died in Mecca's Grand Mosque when a crane working on an expansion project collapsed during a storm and toppled off the roof into the main courtyard, crushing pilgrims underneath.

Such disasters are politically sensitive for the kingdom's ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself internationally as the guardians of orthodox Islam and custodians of its holiest places in Mecca and Medina.

King Salman, like his predecessors, is officially styled "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques".

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com