At least 174 dead after riot at Indonesia football match
JAKARTA: Nearly 200 people were killed when violence broke out after a local league football match in East Java, authorities said on Sunday, in what appears to be the worst stadium disaster in half a century.
Frustrated supporters of Arema football club rushed onto the field at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang city after their team lost 2-3 to visiting Persebaya Surabaya on Saturday night.
The death toll has been rapidly rising since early Sunday when police recorded 129 deaths.
“This number increased to 174 people who have died, according to 10:30 a.m. data gathered by the regional disaster management agency in East Java,” East Java Deputy Gov. Emil Dardak told local media.
The real figure is likely to be higher. Volunteers from the local community have launched a campaign to identify the victims, checking households for missing persons as many teenage fans had no identification documents.
The stampede occurred as fans rushed into an exit gate as police tried to control the crowd with tear gas.
“We used tear gas. It had gotten anarchic. They started attacking officers, they damaged cars,” East Java police chief Nico Afinta told reporters.
Footage circulated on social media showed scuffling between football fans and officers in riot gear, while others scaled a fence when they tried to flee the clouds of tear gas.
Indonesia’s chief security minister, Mahfud MD, said the stadium had been filled beyond its capacity, with 42,000 tickets sold for an arena that could accommodate only 38,000 people.
“Most of the victims had died because it was crowded, there was jostling, and some were trampled and had suffocated,” he said in an Instagram post.
President Joko Widodo ordered a thorough investigation into the incident and ordered the Football Association of Indonesia to suspend all games in the Indonesian top league BRI Liga 1, until the probe has been completed.
“I regret that this tragedy occurred,” he said in a televised speech. “I hope this is the last football tragedy in the country.”
The Indonesian stadium disaster was one of the worst in the history of football and the deadliest in more than five decades. In 1964, violence that broke out at the Estadio Nacional in Lima, Peru, left 328 people dead.
The incident and police response to it may deal a blow to Indonesia’s plans to host the FIFA Under-20 World Cup next year, and its bid to stage the Asian Cup, also in 2023, after China pulled out as host.
Rights groups are blaming the high death toll from Saturday’s match on the use of tear gas by police.
“It’s clear that the use of tear gas is prohibited by FIFA. FIFA in article 19 of its stadium safety and security regulations stressed that the use of tear gas or firearms are prohibited for crowd control in stadiums,” the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation said in a statement.
“We suspect that the use of excessive force with the use of tear gas and unprocedural crowd control have caused the massive death toll.”
Amnesty International Indonesia has called for accountability, saying the “loss of life cannot go unanswered.”
“People must be warned that tear gas will be used and allowed to disperse,” the group’s executive director Usman Hamid said. “Tear gas should only be used to disperse crowds when widespread violence has occurred and when other methods have failed.”