Mixed reactions trail death of 8 fans in Yaounde

Fans have reacted in different ways to the recent death of eight football fans which occurred during a stampede at the Olembe Stadium, Yaounde. It will be recalled that fans tried to gain access into the Olembe Stadium during the Cameroon vs Comoros match on Monday and in the process, there was stampede which caused […]

Fans have reacted in different ways to the recent death of eight football fans which occurred during a stampede at the Olembe Stadium, Yaounde.

It will be recalled that fans tried to gain access into the Olembe Stadium during the Cameroon vs Comoros match on Monday and in the process, there was stampede which caused the death of eight with many others sustaining different degrees of injuries.

Speaking with a cross section of fans, some blamed the organisers for the lapse in crowd control while others blamed the fans for their lack of patience.

A cab driver, King who is married to a Nigerian lady, lamented over the poor handling of the crowd by the LOC.

“We love football in this country just like other countries and the organisers ought to have put preventive measures in place to avoid this tragedy.

“From what I gathered, the gates were locked and normally, the gates ought to be opened for the fans. It’s just so sad these deaths occurred which could have been avoided,” he said.

In the same vein, a trader, Florence Ojong said the fans lacked the patience to follow through the laid-out procedures to gain access to the stadium.

“I will not want to speak ill of the dead because some of them might have been patient to gain access but could have been caught up in the stampede.

“But these kinds of things happen because of lack of patience by the fans. If they had exercised a little bit of patience, all of them would have entered peacefully without any issues. They were probably in a hurry to catch up with the game” she said.

Bela Gambo, a student, said most of the fans probably had no ticket and wanted to use force to gain access into the stadium.

“I am forced to think that some fans probably didn’t have tickets to watch the game and needed to do anything possible to access the stadium. Just one person or a small group of guys may have initiated it and from there, things went out of control,” she said.

It will be noted that CAF president Patrice Motsepe said an “inexplicable” decision to keep an entry gate closed was responsible for the deadly stampede.