Afcon stadium crush: 'The force behind forced us to fall'

On Monday, 46-year-old Cameroon fan Ndombi Irene was excited as she approached Yaounde’s Olembe Stadium with her son for the Africa Cup of Nations knock-out tie with Comoros. However, as she neared the stadium perimeter, her dreams turned into a nightmare as poor organisation and policing resulted in a crush that left eight dead. Here, she tells BBC Sport Africa’s Piers Edwards her story.

«As we were approaching the first entrance, where we were supposed to be checked for Covid pass and match ticket, I realised the entrance was too small.

Then the police suddenly asked us to stop. I don’t know why — maybe they wanted to do a check or something.

I observed from the crowd outside, and the way the police were managing it, that it might be very difficult for everybody to enter the stadium before 8pm when the match was supposed to start.

When I realised that, it was already too late — I could not go back, I could not go forward. I was stuck in the middle of the crowd, where we were just being forced by the pressure behind to keep moving.

The crowd behind did not know what was happening ahead — that those in front were not moving – so they kept coming and coming.

I was not in the first line. There were other people in front of me. I was about ten rows from the front, caught up in the middle of people. I was stuck there for no more than 15 minutes – it was very intense, very severe.

When the pressure became too high, the smaller movable fences [not the fixed iron ones outside the Olembe Stadium] were pushed over and people fell on them. The fences wounded and maybe even suffocated some – for they were [held down by breeze blocks] to stop people from passing.

The crowd was so mammoth that the stampede occurred all of a sudden. The force