Liberian Police has reported at least 29 people dead from a stampede at a Christian prayer gathering in the country’s capital Monrovia.
According to media in the West African country the disaster occurred on Wednesday night or during the early hours of Thursday morning, killed at least 29 people.
Police spokesman Moses Carter told newsmen 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. 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.
Robbers wielding knives and machetes attacked the worshippers, local media reported, suggesting that this may have triggered the stampede.
A stampede at a similar prayer event in the centre of Liberia in November 2021 killed two infants, and hospitalized several others, according to local media.
