TUNIS, May 1 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Seven people died and dozens were injured in a stampede during an open air concert in Tunisia, state news agency Tunis Afrique Presse and witnesses reported on Tuesday.
The concert on Monday night at the Sidi Mansour theatre in a poor suburb of the port city of Sfax featured contestants in the Star Academy Lebanon TV singing competition, which is highly popular among young people across the Arab world.
The stampede broke out when Tunisian singer Marwa began to sing her final song and a large group of enthusiastic teenagers surged forward, trampling people underfoot as the show's host tried in vain to calm the crowd of over 8,000, witnesses said.
"The number of dead has risen to seven and there are 32 people injured," Brahim Bouchrit, director of the Habib Bourgiba hospital in Sfax, told Reuters by telephone.
Tunisia's health and interior ministers went to the scene of the accident and visited some of the dozen injured in hospital, TAP said.
A follow-up concert planned in the city of Bizerte next Saturday was cancelled because of the incident, organisers said.
bdnews24.com/srs/1715 hrs
