45 people died and a dozen injured during a tribute to Magufuli
A total of 45 people lost their lives in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the sidelines of the funeral of the late President John Pombe Magufuli. The mourners paid a well-deserved tribute to their late head of state, 61, who died on 17 March 2021, officially of heart problems.
Following the death of President John Magufuli, tens of thousands of Tanzanians turned out at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s economic capital, on 21 March, where his body was laid to rest.
During the ceremony, 45 people died in a stampede, where a tribute to the late President John Magufuli was held, announced on Tuesday, the Tanzanian police.
“There were many people who wanted to enter the stadium, and some were not patient. They tried to force their way in, and it resulted in a stampede. Forty-five people died in the accident,” Dar es Salaam regional police commander Lazaro Mambosasa told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.
Five of those who died were from the same family, Mambosasa said. A woman and four children were previously reported crushed in the Uhuru Stadium crash, although the stampede’s actual toll was not announced at the time. Lazaro Mambosasa revealed that dozens of people were also injured in the charge, but most were released from the hospital.
John Magufuli’s body was transported to the main cities of Dar-es-Salaam, Dodoma, Zanzibar, Mwanza, and Geita, before being finally buried in his ancestral village of Chato, in the northwest of the country, on the 26th. March.
Tens of thousands of people came to pay their respects, lining the roads, crying and running past the coffin, as a military procession passed through towns. The stampede took place on the second day of the tributes at Uhuru Stadium in Dar-es-Salaam, when the public was allowed to pay their respects.
As a reminder, John Magufuli died at the age of 61 from what authorities say was heart disease, after a mysterious absence of nearly three weeks.
However, questions remain about his death’s real cause, which the opposition said was from Covid-19. Her deputy Samia Suluhu Hassan was sworn in as the country’s first female President and led the farewell ceremonies.
