Football fans died in the arms of players on the pitch during the Arema FC stadium disaster in Indonesia, the team’s coach has said.
Arema FC coach Javier Roca who was left “mentally shattered” by the tragedy said: “I saw the tragedy. The boys passed by with victims in their arms.”
At least 125 people were killed in the crush on Saturday following the game between his side and Persebaya Surabaya in the city of Malang.Panic-stricken fans died in the crush as they desperately tried to flee the stadium after police fired tear gas into crowds who ran onto the pitch at the end of the domestic league match.
Distraught family members were on Monday struggling to comprehend the sudden loss of loved ones at the match that was watched only by the home fans of Arema FC.
The organiser had banned visiting Persebaya Surabaya’s supporters due to Indonesia’s history of violent soccer rivalries.
The crush was among the world’s deadliest disasters at a sporting event with 32 children, one aged 3, killed in the tragedy.
Witnesses said fans flooded the pitch and demanded that Arema management explain why, after 23 years of undefeated home matches against Persebaya, Saturday night’s ended in a 3-2 defeat.
Some of the 42,000 Arema fans threw bottles and other objects at players and soccer officials. At least five police vehicles were toppled and set ablaze outside the stadium. Two police officers were among the dead.
But according to witnesses most of the deaths occurred when riot police, trying to stop the violence, fired tear gas, including toward the spectator stands, triggering the disastrous crush of fans making a panicked, chaotic run for the exits. Most of the 125 people who died were trampled upon or suffocated.
“If there hadn’t been any tear gas maybe there wouldn’t have been chaos,” Choirul Anam, a commissioner at Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights, known as Komnas HAM, told a news briefing on Monday.
Muhamad Dipo Maulana, 21, who was at the match, told BBC Indonesia that Arema fans went on the pitch to confront home team players but were immediately intercepted by police and “beaten”.
More spectators then took to the pitch in protest, the supporter said.
“Police with dogs, shields, and soldiers came forward,” he said adding he heard more than 20 tear gas shots toward fans.
Arema FC President Gilang Widya Pramana said that the management, coach and players were in shock and speechless.
“I am ready to provide assistance, even though it will not be able to return the victim’s life,” Pramana said in a news conference Monday at Arema’s headquarters in Malang.
“This incident was beyond prediction, beyond reason ... in a match watched only by our fans, not a single rival’s supporter,” he said, sobbing. “How can that match kill more than 100 people? An incident that probably wouldn’t exist in the world.”
He said that Arema FC was ready to accept any sanctions from Indonesia’s Soccer Association and the government, and “hopefully, it will be a very valuable lesson.”
Indonesia’s deputy minister of children and women affairs said the children were aged between three and 17.
Ferli Hidayat, local police chief of Malang, said there were some 42,000 spectators at Saturday’s game even though the stadium is supposed to hold 38,000.
Saturday’s game is already among the world’s worst crowd disasters, including the 1996 World Cup qualifier between Guatemala and Costa Rica in Guatemala City where more than 80 died and some 100 others were injured.
