34 die in post-concert stampede as thousands storm exit

CONAKRY: Police in Guinea launched an investigation yesterday into a stampede at a seafront rap concert that left 33 people dead including 11 children in scenes of mass panic.

Authorities said the victims had been trampled on Rogbane beach as thousands surged to the exits after group “Instinct Killers” performed to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadaan on Tuesday.

“There was a stampede to get out of the concert… but there was a rope that blocked the way,” a police source told AFP.

“People at the back began pushing and people fell, creating a mass panic.”

Authorities announced the closure of all the country’s beaches following the disaster.

Medical sources told AFP that 34 deaths had been registered at the city’s main emer- gency unit, with 11 of the victims aged between 10 and 17.

A further 58 people received treatment for minor injuries, the hospital said, indicating that several other injured had been treated elsewhere.

Another police source told AFP the concert had been overseen by a small security team of under-trained guards.

“The exit was about three metres (wide) and thousands of people and vehicles were trying to get out at the same time,” the source said.

Crowds of women gathered to wail in grief in the courtyard of a mosque opposite the city’s Donka hospital, where dead family members lay, as the full extent of the tragedy became clear.

El-Hadj Abdoulaye Barry, who lost a daughter, said he began to worry when his three children had not returned home by nightfall.

“I assumed they were delayed by traffic and didn’t call. When the television broke the news I jumped out of bed and began worrying about my children.

“Half an hour later, two of them returned in tears. I asked the eldest, who is 17, ‘where is your sister?’ He told me ‘there was a stampede on the beach and people were killed, but I have not seen my sister’.

“I went out looking for her and I found her body here at the hospital at 3am.”

The office of President Alpha Conde convened an emergency cabinet meeting, announcing that the head of Guinea’s public events agency had been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.