A stampede at a Christian prayer gathering in Liberia’s
capital Monrovia has killed at least 29 people, police said on Thursday, adding
that the death toll may rise.
The disaster occurred on Wednesday night or during the early
hours of Thursday morning, according to media in the West African country.
Police spokesman Moses Carter told AFP the death toll was
provisional and “may increase” because a number of people were in critical
condition. He added that children were included among the dead.
Details about the incident remained sketchy. Local media
said the event was a Christian prayer gathering — known in Liberia as a
“crusade” — held in a football pitch in New Kru Town, a working-class suburb of
Monrovia.
Such gatherings typically gather thousands of people in
Liberia, a highly religious country where a majority of the population of five
million are Christians.
Pastor Abraham Kromah, a popular preacher, staged the
two-day prayer event in New Kru Town and attracted large crowds, according to
images circulating on social media.
Robbers wielding knives and machetes attacked the
worshippers, local media reported, suggesting that this may have triggered the
stampede.
Eye witness Emmanuel Gray, 26, told AFP he heard “heavy
noise” towards the end of the event, and saw several dead bodies.
Accidents and disasters are relatively common in Liberia.
A stampede at a similar prayer event in the centre of
Liberia in November 2021 killed two infants, and hospitalised several others,
according to local media.
Seventeen people were also reported missing after a
shipwreck off the country’s coast in July last year.
And about 50 people died in a mine collapse in the
northwestern Liberia in May 2020.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic, is an impoverished
country that is still recovering after back-to-back civil wars between
1989-2003, which killed about 250,000 people.
It was also ravaged by the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola
epidemic.
According to the World Bank, 44 percent of Liberia’s
population lives on less than $1.9 a day.
The UN’s Human Development Index, a barometer of prosperity,
ranks Liberia 175th out of 189 countries and territories.