Tragedy in the Congo

By: chris | September 15th, 2008

A terrible tragedy occurred today during a game in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which stadium riots killed 13, most of them children, and injured another 35.

The derby between Socozaki and Nyuki System was halted after Nyuki’s goalkeeper resorted to running up the pitch performing “witchcraft” against the opposition with his team losing. This resulted in an on-field brawl between the two clubs and when a local police commander attempted to intervene and break up the fights, the crowd began throwing things at him.

In an effort to cease the unrest, other police officers fired their weapons into the air which, instead of calming the crowd, only managed to escalate matters and soon the riots began. In the midst of these riots and stampedes, 13 people were killed, due mainly to suffocation, and according to local governor Julien Mpaluku, “most of the dead were children, only two or three were adults”.

Though this was a stadium riot, something we’ve sadly seen before, this particular situations spreads far beyond the pitch. For quite some time the area of North Kivu, where the match took place, has been in the midst of violent conflict between the government army and rebels, and last week there were heightened hostilities in North & South Kivu once again, forcing many from their homes and the region:

Many thousands of civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, many of them repeatedly displaced, have been forced to flee again amid heavy clashes between government forces and troops loyal to renegade Gen Laurent Nkunda.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a medical charity, described the humanitarian situation in North Kivu as “very worrying” and has evacuated some of its teams in the area because of the fighting.

There is obviously more to this than a simple stadium riot when considering the unrest of the entire region, but sport should servAe as an escape from these matters, if only for a short time. Unfortunately, this tragedy was simply the opposite. Our prayers go out for all involved.

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Chris

Sure, and anytime some idiot thanks his personal lord and savior JC after winning a game (though never blaming him after losing, you notice) I feel at least as much derision and scorn. I'm not anti-witchcraft or a Western-superiorist. But it's more than a tragedy. A natural disaster is a tragedy. This is a lot of dead children due to some combination of stupidity and an inclination towards violence. Universal faults, but I'll call 'em when I see 'em.
SwissJan

I wouldn't use this as the beginning of an anti-witchcraft and western superiority debate (that's what is happening on other websites) - it's not like the christian fundamentalism of some individuals is better than African tribal magic. I would just see this as a tragedy, in any case it's not too long ago that Christians were killing each other over religion.
Chris

Yeah, it certainly is tragic but at some point you need to place responsibility on the idiots who triggered the whole thing. I mean, the keeper running up the pitch casting spells like a dark wizard in a Quidditch match is one thing, but the fact that a number of other people decided that violence and mayhem were an appropriate response to this--and so much else--is where the core of the problem lies.
Rob

Absolutely awful.
mele419

Really?
Witchcraft.
I'm sorry but that just makes this pathetic.
Ian

Horrible. Condolences to everyone involved - the saddest thing is, in this region and in this situation (police reaction escalating the problem), you can't imagine any real answer in terms of what to do to avoid it happening again. 10 children being suffocated to death isn't something that should ever happen in a football stadium in this day and age, anywhere ... terrible thing.