Indonesia investigates soccer rush; Police use of tear gas

MALANG, Indonesia, Oct. 3 (Reuters) – Indonesia on Monday deployed an independent team to investigate a stampede at a soccer stadium that killed 125 people, including 32 children, when the country’s human rights commission confirmed the use of tear gas by police questioned.

Panic-stricken spectators were dejected as they tried to escape from the packed stadium in Malang, east Java, on Saturday after police fired tear gas to disperse fans of the losing home team, who played at the end of the national league game ran the field.

At least 32 of the victims were children between the ages of 3 and 17, Nahar, an official with the Department of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, told Reuters. The official had previously estimated the child death toll at 17.

Indonesia’s top security minister Mahfud MD said the government will form an independent investigative team including academics, football experts and government officials to investigate what happened.

The team will try to find out who is responsible for the tragedy in the next few days, he said.

The government will provide victims’ families with 50 million rupiah (US$3,268) in compensation, while hundreds more injured will be treated free of charge, he added.

Police and sports officials have been dispatched to Malang to investigate one of the deadliest stadium disasters in the world. President Joko Widodo has ordered the Football Association to suspend all League 1 matches until the investigation is complete.

FIFA, the governing body of world football, says in its safety regulations that firearms or “crowd control gas” should not be used at matches.

“If there hadn’t been tear gas, maybe there wouldn’t have been chaos,” Choirul Anam, a commissioner of Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission, known as Komnas HAM, said in a news conference on Monday.

In 1964, 328 people were killed in a scrum when Peru hosted Argentina at the Estadio Nacional in Lima.

A British disaster in 1989 crushed 96 Liverpool supporters to death when an overcrowded and fenced-off enclosure at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield collapsed.

Violence and hooliganism have long been hallmarks of Indonesian football, particularly in places like Jakarta, the capital, but the scale of Saturday’s disaster in that Java city left the small community stunned.

“My family and I didn’t think it would happen like this,” said Endah Wahyuni, the older sister of two boys, Ahmad Cahyo, 15, and Muhammad Farel, 14, who died after getting caught in the hand-to-hand combat.

“They loved football but never saw Arema live at Kanjuruhan Stadium, it was their first time,” she added at her brothers’ funeral on Sunday, referring to the home team they supported.

“OUR FOOTBALL TRAGEDY”

The Indonesian daily Koran Tempo ran a black front page on Monday with the words “Our football tragedy” printed in red and a list of the dead.

Home team Arema FC had lost the match against Persebaya Surabaya 3-2, despite the authorities saying that tickets would not be issued to Persebaya fans due to safety concerns.

Mahfud said Sunday the stadium was overcrowded. Around 42,000 tickets were issued for a stadium designed for 38,000 people, he said.

A tearful Arema FC president Gilang Widya Pramana apologized to victims of the stampede on Monday and said he was ready to take “full responsibility” for the events.

“A match result is not worth paying for in lives,” said Javier Roca, Arema FC coach.

In an address on Sunday, Pope Francis said he had prayed for the dead and the injured in the disaster.

FIFA, which called the incident a “dark day for everyone involved in football and an unimaginable tragedy”, has asked the Indonesian football authorities for a report on the incident.

($1 = 15,300,0000 rupiah)

writing by Kate Lamb/Stanley Widianto; Additional reporting by Zahra Matarani and Ananda Teresia in Jakarta; Edited by Ed Davies, Clarence Fernandez and Raju Gopalakrishnan

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