The bodies of 20 youths, who died without apparent injuries, were discovered Sunday in an informal night bar in a township in East London, South Africa. Local police have opened an investigation into the cause of these mass deaths.
The victims were discovered in the early hours of the day in a makeshift bar set up in the township of Scenery Park, in East London, noted an AFP correspondent. “We are continuing to investigate the circumstances of these deaths,” said provincial police spokesman General Thembinkosi Kinana.
The victims are between 18 and 20 years old. “Three injured died in hospital and two remain in very critical condition,” Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe, head of the provincial government’s security service, told local television.
A provincial health services official, Unathi Binqose, ruled out the possibility of a stampede or crowd movement. “None of the victims had visible open wounds,” he said. The victims, he said, were likely students celebrating the end of exams and the school year.
Intoxication?
On social networks, some mentioned the possibility of gas poisoning or collective poisoning. Unauthenticated footage showed bodies lying on the ground, with no visible injuries.
Local television broadcast looped images of the crowds of families and onlookers gathered around this bar in East London, a city of one million people on the Indian Ocean, some 700 km south of Johannesburg.
Many parents whose children did not spend the night at home came to the news, hoping not to discover them among the victims, explained the police who were trying to calm the crowd of onlookers.
