On Monday, 46-year-old Cameroon fan Ndombi Irene was once excited as she approached Yaounde’s Olembe Stadium along with her son for the Africa Cup of International locations knock-out tie with Comoros. On the other hand, as she neared the stadium perimeter, her goals became a nightmare as a weigh down left 8 lifeless. Right here, she tells BBC Game Africa’s Piers Edwards her tale.
“As we had been drawing near the primary front, the place we had been intended to be checked for Covid move and fit price ticket, I realised the doorway was once too small.
Then the police abruptly requested us to prevent. I don’t know why – possibly they sought after to do a take a look at or one thing.
I seen from the group outdoor, and the way in which the police had been managing it, that it could be very tricky for everyone to go into the stadium sooner than 8pm when the fit was once intended to start out.
After I realised that, it was once already too overdue – I may just now not return, I may just now not cross ahead. I used to be caught in the course of the group, the place we had been simply being pressured via the drive at the back of to stay shifting.
The group at the back of didn’t know what was once going down forward – that the ones in entrance weren’t shifting – so that they stored coming and coming.
I used to be now not within the first line. There have been folks in entrance of me. I used to be about 10 rows from the entrance, stuck up in the course of other folks. I used to be caught there for not more than quarter-hour – it was once very intense, very serious.
When the drive changed into too top, the smaller movable fences [not the fixed iron ones outside the Olembe Stadium] had been driven over and other folks fell on them. The fences wounded and even perhaps suffocated some – for they had been [held down by breeze blocks] to prevent other folks from passing.
The group was once so mammoth that the stampede came about abruptly. The drive at the back of pressured us in entrance to fall and the ones from at the back of walked over us – smashing us. Maximum folks choked within the mud that was once at the flooring.
I used to be in truth choking – my imaginative and prescient was once blurred – I may just now not see. It was once simplest after a while that I used to be ready to peer once more. I may just now not communicate [for a while afterwards either].
I believe I used to be at the flooring for approximately 5 mins when the folks had been stampeding ahead, sooner than any person was once ready to drag me out.
I simply discovered any person pulling me out of the group via my head – that’s how I were given stored.
I’m truly in order that lucky. On the clinic the place the few folks that had been subconscious had been rushed, simplest two folks had been alive. The seven other folks round me had been lifeless, so I truly rely myself very, very lucky to be alive.
I used to be with my son and 3 colleagues from my faculty. We’re all alive.
Truthfully, I believe the safety brokers didn’t foresee that state of affairs. They weren’t ready for it. I believed that if they’d made provision for spectators to line up even 300 metres sooner than the doorway, it could had been higher.
I estimate that greater than 1,000 other folks had been on the front on the time, and the to be had law enforcement officials may just now not arrange the group that was once there at the moment.
At one level, the police succeeded in pushing again the group against the again, so the entire 1,000 other folks didn’t stroll over those that fell – if that have been the case, we might have had extra casualties.
That was once an excessively dangerous enjoy – I’ll by no means like to visit a soccer fit once more.”
