Saturday’s game turned into a “massacre”, with locals accusing police of using tear gas.
Indonesians have demanded an account of the events of a football match between two rival clubs in one of the worst disasters in football history.
Police responded with tear gas as thousands rushed into the stadium following the home team’s defeat at the Kanjuruhan stadium in Marang, East Java, on Saturday night.
Crowds who fled in panic rammed and trampled at several exits. Authorities say at least 125 people – including dozens of children, including one as young as three – died in the accident.
The coach of the home team, Arema FC, revealed that some fans had died in the arms of the players who were still crying for them hours earlier.
“All I can say is a horrific sight,” said the team’s Portugal star Sergio Silva. “The police car was on fire, everything was smashed, there was blood in the hallways, and people lost their lives. shoes.”
“People are desperate, they see someone dead and want to escape,” he told Portuguese newspaper A Bola.
Authorities launched an investigation on Monday following allegations were made that police used high-handedness to enforce the law. Public anger has risen – some mourners shouted “murderers” to officers. At least 18 officers are under investigation for their conduct at the scene.
How did all this happen? Here’s what we know so far.
hostile history
Before the game, the fears were already there – Arema FC and another East Java side Persebaya Surabaya are long-time rivals, and violent clashes between fans on both sides are not unprecedented.
So extra precautions were arranged before the game – including more security personnel “as a precaution”, Maike Ira Puspita, deputy secretary general of the Indonesian Football Federation, told the BBC.
They also banned visiting Parsbaya fans from the stadium, meaning only the home fans – and an overloaded 42,000 – were there to cheer for their team on Saturday night.
The Football Association also dispatched police officers. In the first half of the game, everything was still “controllable”. “Security is business as usual,” Puspita said. “It’s still ok at halftime.”
Witnesses refuted this claim, telling the BBC that there were fights at half-time and tension had been building in the second half.
“It was at this point that some fans rushed into the stadium. It all started from there,” Puspita said.
What happened following that is unclear — and it’s hotly debated. Authorities were even reluctant to specify the timing of events on the field.
“All of us are better off waiting for the investigative team to deal with it,” Puspita told the BBC.
But what is known is that following the final whistle, Arema fans entered the pitch while the players gathered in the middle of the pitch. BBC Indonesian reported that the police had escorted the Parsbaya players to the locker room at this time.
Sergio Silva said many of the crowds on the pitch seemed to be there to “show support, not attack”. However, following realizing the situation had escalated, the team returned to the locker room.
At some point, police began firing tear gas at the crowd of thousands, in multiple rounds to disperse the crowd. A witness told the BBC that police fired tear gas “continuously and rapidly”.
Witnesses said there was no need for the police to be so brutal – they used a lot of irritating gas and officers beat fans with batons.
Fans accused the police of unreasonably using violence and tear gas.
The gas did an irresistible effect—it caused mass flight. Fans fled the arena and ran towards the narrow exit of the arena. But there were thousands of people bumping into each other, and many people inhaling gas, which turned into a stampede at the exit.
As they struggled to escape, people punched walls, punched holes and grabbed with their hands, trying to pull themselves out of the predicament. The crowd pushing in the direction of the iron gate made them twisted and unable to get out. In other places, the collision left some people dead next to the locker room.
Silva said he and his teammates huddled in the locker room for shelter and it felt like hours were spent. They heard the roar of the crowd, and the screams in the hallway.
“People are desperate, they see people dying and they want to escape. We finally let some people die like that,” he said.
That scene, he said, was more like “doomsday, war… nothing to do with football”.
The incident killed at least 125 people and injured hundreds.
“There are fans dying in the arms of the players,” Arema coach Javier Roca told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser. “My mind is broken. I feel overwhelmed, even I feel like I have a heavy responsibility.”
“I think the police went too far,” he added.
The exact death toll has yet to be confirmed. Many fans are being treated, and some of the injured have reportedly suffered brain damage.
Police questioned
Police at one point described the incident as a riot, and two officers were also killed. They accused fans of assaulting police officers and damaging vehicles – with pictures showing the burnt wreckage of cars.
But anger once morest the authorities is still building: At memorial rallies across the country, protesters have demanded that police be held accountable. In the capital Jakarta, mourners chanted “Murderer! Murderer!” and taped a banner reading “Kandjuruhan Massacre” to the fence.
In Marang, messages protesting the police were also graffitied near the Kanjuluhan Stadium.
On Monday, Indonesia’s Minister of Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin said the government was asking the police to “disclose the identities of the alleged perpetrators”.
He said there was video showing an officer carrying out an unauthorized action, without elaborating.
On the other hand, the police announced an investigation into 18 officers suspected of “possessing a throwing weapon”.
Indonesia has long been known for violent incidents caused by fan hostility. The country’s police also have a track record of violent law enforcement – they have been criticised for the frequent use of tear gas as a crowd control tool, even though it has been banned by world football’s governing body FIFA.
“In many football stadium riots, the police are accustomed to the use of tear gas – it’s turning the abnormal into the normal,” said Fajar Junadi, a football researcher and lecturer at Mohammadiya University in Yogyakarta. Junaedi) said.
He referred to a 2012 case in which a fan was killed by police tear gas, which has not been followed up.
Puspita had earlier declined to answer a BBC question regarding whether police use of tear gas was standard practice in league matches.
She stressed that the organisers had taken steps earlier this year to help teams manage crowds, including arranging some security teams for first-tier clubs and coordinating with police.
“At the moment, it’s not fair to blame anyone. This is a dark day for all of us – a tragic and devastating event,” she said.
*BBC IndonesianreporterAdditional reporting by Raja Lombanrau
Looking Back: Those Great Football Field Massacres in History
What happened in Indonesia is not just a huge number of casualties compared to the major stadium tragedies in history. When stadium tragedies occur, the common thread is often the lack of proper crowd management by the organizers.
The 1964 Lima Stadium massacre killed more than 320 people
That year, in a Tokyo Olympic qualifier between Peru and the Argentine national team, following a goal by the home team was ruled out, the stadium fell into chaos, and eventually more than 300 people died. Peruvian fans first rushed into the Peruvian National Stadium, police used tear gas, and the crowd stomped on the locked exit as they fled. Another witness said that fans and police also clashed outside the stadium at the time, and someone was shot dead. But BBC Sport’s Piers Edwards reported that the judges in the ensuing investigation found no bodies to prove the claim. The incident is still considered the worst tragedy in football history, and the police commander who ordered the officers to fire tear gas was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
A cross-city match between two local favorites, Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko, saw Kotoko fans riot following the team was beaten. Police used tear gas to disperse and fans stampeded on locked exits, killing at least 126 people in what is the worst disaster to date for an African football stadium. The investigation blamed police overreaction, with six officers charged with manslaughter but acquitted in 2003. The Ghanaian public is said to be largely convinced that the ruling is correct. Local journalists told the BBC that it was the builders of the stadium and those who locked the exit gates that people wanted to prosecute.
The Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 was a watershed moment for British and European football
This is one of the worst and most controversial football tragedies in the world. There were tight iron fences at the Hillsborough Stadium at the time, and 96 Liverpool fans died in a stampede during the FA Cup final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest due to improper crowd management before the game. In 2021, Andrew Devine, 55, was pronounced dead from the severe trauma caused by the incident, becoming the 97th victim. Both the police and the British media initially blamed the incident on the fans, accusing them of misbehaving following drinking. It took more than 30 years for an independent investigation to finally disprove the claim. In 2016, a jury ruled that the victims of the Hillsborough massacre were unlawfully killed and confirmed the deaths were not caused by fans.
In 1988, the Dasharas Stadium tragedy in Nepal
In March 1988, a sudden hailstorm during a cup game in Kathmandu caused fans to flee to the only covered part of the stadium, but was pushed away by the police. Afterwards, the fans fled to the exit to find the door locked. The stampede killed dozens of people. The official death toll was 70, but Nepalese media put the number at 93.
2012, Port Said Stadium, Egypt
image source,Getty Images
image caption,
2012 Port Said Stadium Massacre
In February 2012, there was bloodshed in a league match between Egyptian clubs Al Masry and Ahli. After Masri’s 3-1 win, the team’s fans rushed to the stands in the Ahli fan area to attack opposing fans who were trapped in a beast fight following police refused to open the stadium gates. The massive unrest left 74 dead and more than 500 injured. More than 70 people were prosecuted, including nine police officers, and 47 were sentenced, including the death penalty.
Some of Ahli’s fans are accused of playing a major role in the protests that overthrew former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Some fans said that Mubarak’s supporters instigated the violence as retaliation, and the police did not do much to stop it. The Brazilian player Fabio Junior, who was present at the Ahli team at the time, said in an interview with ESPN in 2019 that he still has nightmares regarding the tragic situation that day.
1982, Russia’s Luzhniki Stadium Massacre
The Moscow stadium, which hosted the World Cup final four years ago, is also the site of a stadium tragedy that has been under wraps for years.
Dozens of home fans were killed in a stampede following a European club match between Soviet-era Spartak Moscow and Dutch HFC Haarlem nearly 40 years ago. The official death toll (66) was not released until 1989, following only acknowledging “one incident”. Witnesses said that due to the cold weather, the number of people entering the stadium was small, but the fans were concentrated in a crowded corner of the stands, and there was only one open exit, so as to “convenience the police to control the crowd”, a Russian The reporter once told Al Jazeera.
