EAST LONDON, South Africa – Before fainting among the corpses, Simbongile Mtsweni gasped as a fire-like gas crept into his nose and lungs. “When I arrived,” he said, “I was on the second floor and started vomiting when I realized I was lying next to the dead.”
Hundreds of young people, lured by a Facebook announcement promising an end-of-term party with alcoholic drinks and free Wi-Fi, flocked to a cramped little pub in East London, a city on the south coast of South Africa.
Twenty-one of them, all teenagers, will not survive the night. A mass funeral, scheduled for President Cyril Ramaphosa, will take place on Wednesday.
Witnesses, investigators – the whole country – are struggling to understand how a night out turned into a deadly stampede, leaving young people shattered and bleeding on the floors of Enyobeni. Tavern, in the town of Scenery Park in East London.
Lubabalo Dongeni, an 18-year-old high school student, still limps five days after the incident: “We came to have fun, not to find dead bodies.
Authorities have not given a reason why people died or released the results of an autopsy, but the public and authorities have found plenty of targets for blame and anger. Permits issued for the hastily built pub with two floors and only one entrance are being closely monitored, the couple who run it are under criminal investigation and a DJ performing there says the community is “dying” for his blood. There has been a lot of speculation about toxic gas filling the air, who released it, and whether it contributed to death, deadly panic, or both.
Six people who have been inside the pub, as well as others outside, said in interviews that the combination of mysterious gas, a human heart, and an airless room can cause tragedy. .
Town residents were furious with local police for taking hours to answer emergency calls. Beyond East London, the episode sparked a national debate about underage drinking and the place of alcohol in South Africa. Some pointed to other systemic flaws, from where and how pubs were built to lax enforcement of liquor license laws in towns.
Those who died were only 13 years old and most were under 18. The legal age to enter bars and drinks in South Africa is 18.
The teenagers who were there that night were clearly traumatized.
Members of the high school boys’ soccer team were in the pub, but a quarterback and goalkeeper never made it through. The team’s forward said he is currently grappling with survivor’s guilt.
A 19-year-old man blames himself for helping his 17-year-old friend attend the party where she died. When a group of teenagers visited the pub recently to place white plastic roses at the entrance, they were moved.
The entrance, a single brown painted metal door, was the focal point of that night’s chaos. The party was supposed to end at midnight on Saturday, June 25, but outside, dozens of people were still trying to get inside, according to cellphone videos. After 12:30 a.m., the pub darkened, but no one flinched – power outages are common in South Africa.
But when the disco lights flashed again a few minutes later, a plume of air flew over the ground floor, survivors said. Some say it smells like pepper spray, while others liken it to tear gas.
People rushed outside, while those outside in the cold winter night tried to get inside. That’s when the attackers pulled the door shut, witnesses said, trapping everyone inside.
While dance music, a popular local style called amapiano, pounded on the second floor, people on the ground floor climbed over each other to get out, breaking the only two windows in the more than 350-acre room square feet.
Brian Mapisa, a rapper who just finished his rehearsal on the second floor, said he could hear gasps all around him. He was walking down the stairs to the exit when the door closed and the drunkenness began. The trapped person pressed against him so tightly that his legs went numb.
The two bit him when they tried to climb over him, he recalls, the scaly half-circle on his arm still red six days later. Mr. Mapisa said the gas came up when it touched his wound. He felt wobbly, falling to his knees.
The music only stopped when the screams pierced the meconium, survivors said. Neon lights bounced off yellow walls with swirling brown murals, illuminated bodies sprawled on the dance floor, and friends who couldn’t revive them.
Some people jumped from the second floor. Some survivors said it was only then that the attackers were able to open the only door to bring some of the bodies out.
Nolitha Qhekaza’s bedroom window is a few steps from the pub entrance. When people jumped from the balcony, they landed on her roof. She said dead and wounded teenagers were laid out on her front lawn. A girl with a broken leg lay on the floor of her dining room until more than 7am
In the early hours of that Sunday morning, Ms. Qhekaza, a 55-year-old grandmother, called the police 10 times between 2:25 a.m. and 3:35 a.m., her call logs show.
Police and ambulances finally started arriving around 4 a.m., neighbors said. As officers rounded up the area, parents tried to make their way through the ice. Some of the unconscious victims remained in the pub, sprawled on benches or just lying on the dance floor – dead and wounded side by side.
Photos of the scene went viral on social media. That’s why some parents find out not only that their kids were out that night, but that they’re dead.
Sidwenn Rangile, father of soccer team goalkeeper Mbulelo Rangile, said: “My son is trending.
Unable to find his son at local hospitals, Mr. Rangile rushed to the morgue. At first, he did not recognize his son’s body among the rows of corpses because the boy’s skin had turned dark. Another victim, a 17-year-old man, was also unrecognizable just hours after her death, said her friend Sinenjongo Phuthumani, who was also present at the pub.
Even grieving parents like Mr. Rangile have faced criticism for their heavy coverage of the disaster.
“If the finger is pointed, it must be pointed out to all of us,” he said. “But it’s not fair to blame us.”
The pub owners, Siyakhangela and Vuyokazi Ndevu, have received much public condemnation.
The pub, which shares a wall with several private homes, has long divided this community, where residents use their savings to slowly build their homes. Neighbors complained of urine streaks along their walls and empty bottles scattered outside, parties that lasted until 8 a.m. and children vomiting in their gardens.
Ndevus declined to comment.
Several neighbors said they met with police and an inspector from the Eastern Cape Liquor Council just three weeks before the disaster. But a spokesman for the liquor board and police both said they had no record of complaints about the pub.
The pub’s license was issued in 2012, but the liquor department was unaware that the owner had built a second floor in recent years.
Last week, the liquor board filed a criminal case against Vuyokazi Ndevu, who was in the name of the issued license, for selling alcohol to a minor. Police have not said whether they will charge her or not.
Nationally, the conversation has turned to alcohol abuse and unregulated pubs in South Africa, particularly in poor, predominantly black towns. More than half of South Africans do not drink alcohol, but those who report drinking too much, according to the World Health Organization.
Football coach Ludumo Salman, who founded a high school football club in Scenery Park, where drug use is on the rise, it is common to go to pubs to drink. in adolescents and is considered less evil behavior.
“I hope this will serve as a wake-up call, because this is a reality across South Africa,” said Esethu Sotheni, who runs a youth nonprofit in east London towns. .
