12 people reportedly lost their lives on Saturday, May 20, 2023, in a stampede at a football stadium in El Salvador.
The police and the emergency service unit have said the incident left several hundred people injured.
Authorities have said the stampede was the result of fans who rushed to enter the Cuscatlan Stadium in the country’s capital, San Salvador, to watch a local football match between Alianza Football Club and CD FAS.
The game was halted and subsequently postponed while the police and emergency service personnel evacuated spectators from the stadium.
Confirming the casualties, Mauricio Arriaza, National Civil Police (PNC), said “Salvadoran soccer is in mourning.”.
According to Carlos Fuentes, a spokesman for the emergency services company Comandos de Salvamento, the stampede began when a stadium gate collapsed, making people compress.
More than 500 patients are being treated, he said.
He further stated that about 100 people were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, with some displaying signs of suffocation and other sorts of damage.
One of the survivors, 40-year-old Sandra Guzman, left the hospital on Sunday with her left knee bandaged, walking with difficulty in the company of her friend, Javier Ramirez.
Recounting their ordeal, both expressed that this was the “first and last time” they would witness such misfortune and that they would never return to the stadium.
According to Guzman, “a large crowd of people fell on me. I couldn’t even breathe; they were choking me”.
She said, “People were pushing me to get in; they didn’t give me a chance to go back. When I came to see, I panicked; I had a lot of people on top of me. I fainted, and when I woke up, I was in the hospital”.
Health Minister Francisco Alabi had stated that the country’s hospital network was “providing medical care to all patients”.
Speaking on the incident, the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said the PNC and the Attorney General’s Office would look into the event and prosecute those found guilty.
In a statement made on Twitter, he said “Everyone will be investigated: teams, managers, stadiums, box offices, leagues, federations—whoever the culprits are, they will not go unpunished”.
According to Arriaza of the PNC, the probe will find culpability “either by action or omission of some of those in charge”.
Police also want to learn “why the fans made the decision to break through one of the gates on the south side” of the stadium”.
In a statement, the Salvadoran Football Federation (Fesfut) said it “deeply regrets” the events at the stadium and “expresses its solidarity” with the families of those” affected “and killed.
“Fesfut will immediately request a report of what happened and will communicate the relevant information as soon as possible,” it said.
In a statement issued on Sunday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and friends, calling the stampede “tragic.”
All football activities have been suspended due to the incident.
