EAST
LONDON, South Africa — At
least 21 teenagers, the youngest possibly just 13, died at the weekend after a
night out at a township tavern in
South Africa, in a tragedy whose cause
remains unclear.
اضافة اعلان
Many are thought to have been students
celebrating the end of their high-school exams on Saturday night, provincial
officials said.
There were no visible wounds on the bodies.
Officials have ruled out a stampede as a possible cause and said autopsies
would determine if the deaths could be linked to poisoning.
Crowds of people, including parents whose
children were missing, gathered on Sunday outside the tavern where the tragedy
happened in the city of
East London, while mortuary vehicles collected the
bodies, an AFP correspondent saw.
Senior government officials rushed to the
southern city. They included national Police Minister Bheki Cele, who broke
down in tears after emerging from a morgue where the bodies were being stored.
“It’s a terrible scene,” he told reporters.
“They are pretty young. When you are told they are 13 years, 14 years and you
go there and you see them. It breaks (you).”
The provincial government of Eastern Cape
said eight girls and 13 boys had died. Seventeen were found dead inside the
tavern. The rest died in hospital.
Drinking is permitted for over-18s in
township taverns, commonly known as shebeens, which are often situated cheek by
jowl with family homes or, in some cases, inside the homes themselves.
But safety regulations and drinking-age laws
are not always enforced.
“We have a child that was there, who passed
away on the scene,” said the parents of a 17-year-old boy.
“This child, we were not thinking was going
to die this way. This was a humble child, respectful,” said grieving mother
Ntombizonke Mgangala, standing next to her husband outside the morgue.
President
Cyril Ramaphosa, who is attending
the G7 summit in Germany, sent his condolences.
He voiced concern “about the reported
circumstances under which such young people were gathered at a venue which, on
the face of it, should be off-limits to persons under the age of 18”.
The authorities are now considering whether
to revise liquor licensing regulations. South Africa is among the countries in
Africa where most alcohol is consumed.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable; ... losing 20
young lives just like that,” provincial prime minister Oscar Mabuyane said,
visibly shocked.
He was speaking to reporters before the toll
was updated to at least 21.
He condemned the “unlimited consumption of
liquor”.
“You can’t just trade in the middle of
society like this and think that young people are not going to experiment,” he
said from outside the tavern, in a residential area called Scenery Park.
Empty bottles of alcohol, wigs, and even a
pastel purple “Happy Birthday” sash were found strewn on the dusty street
outside the double-story Enyobeni Tavern, according to Unathi Binqose, a safety
government official who arrived at the scene at dawn.
‘No
obvious signs of injury’
Ruling
out a stampede as the cause of death, Binqose told AFP: “There are no visible
open wounds.”
“Forensic (investigators) will take samples
and test to see if there was any poisoning of any sort,” he said, adding the
bar was overcrowded.
Local newspaper DispatchLive reported on its
website: “Bodies are lying strewn across tables, chairs and on the floor, with
no obvious signs of injury.”
Parents and officials said they understood
many of the dead were students celebrating “pens down” parties held after the
end of high school exams.
Local television showed police officers trying to calm
down a crowd of parents and onlookers gathered outside the club in the city,
which is located on the
Indian Ocean coast, nearly 1,000km south of
Johannesburg.
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