NAIROBI, (Reuters) – A stampede at a Tanzanian stadium crushed 45 people to death as mourners paid last respects to late President John Magufuli, police said yesterday, many times more than the five fatalities initially announced after the disaster on March 21.
Police in the port city of Dar es Salaam, where the stampede occurred, attributed some of the deaths to people being starved of oxygen at the event due to overcrowding.
“It is true that 45 people died because of stampedes and failing to get enough air,” Lazaro Mambosasa, Dar es Salaam’s zonal police commander, told Reuters.