At least nine people, including children, were killed and several others injured in a stampede during New Year celebrations at a mall in the Ugandan capital Kampala, police said on Sunday.
The mass movement came after fireworks were set off outside the Freedom City shopping mall south of the capital, National Police spokesman Luke Owoyesigyire said. Five people were killed instantly in the onslaught and “many more” injured, he said in a statement.
“The rescuers arrived on the scene and transported the injured to the hospital,” he continued, adding that four of those injured died on the way to the hospital, mainly from suffocation, leaving nine dead.
Most of the victims are “young people aged 10, 11, 14 and 20,” Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango told AFP.
Mr Owoyesigyire confirmed that “young people” were among the victims and denounced acts of “recklessness and negligence” without further detail.
“There are several injured and our investigative team is following the investigation to get the exact number and full information on those who died and we are contacting their families,” Mr Onyango continued.
The rush “started as we were watching the fireworks,” one survivor, Sylvia Nakalema, 27, a Kampala entrepreneur, told AFP.
“It was a huge crowd. People started pushing each other (…), causing some people to fall. Children cried and there was chaos,” she continued.
“I survived because I was cornered by the crowd. Eventually I ran out of breath (…) and couldn’t get out until the situation calmed down. But some people were already out of breath on the ground,” Ms. Nakalema added.
In images broadcast by NTV, several grieving families gathered in front of a morgue in the capital.
In 2009, one person was killed and three others injured in a stampede in front of an amusement park in Kansanga, a town near the capital Kampala.
These New Year celebrations in Uganda, a country in Africa’s Great Lakes region, were the first in three years after restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and security concerns.