Fan violence, chaos and tear gas fire formed a deadly cocktail on Saturday evening 1er October, in a stadium in the city of Malang, in the province of East Java, Indonesia, after a match in the national football championship. One hundred and twenty-five people were killed and 188 others were injured, according to the authorities, by suffocation, compression or trauma, in the Kanjuruhan stadium. Disproportionate use by riot police of tear gas fire is pointed out.
The stadium was full: 42,000 tickets had been sold, while, according to the minister responsible for coordinating security issues, Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin, the capacity had been limited to 38,000 people. The minister called on Monday, October 3, in a televised statement, the Indonesian police to “identify” those who in its ranks “perpetrated the crimes”: “We ask the national police to find the perpetrators of the crimes in the coming days”did he declare.
It was the defeat of local club Arema FC, 2-3, against club Persebaya Surabaya, which first sparked the anger of its supporters. The two clubs have a long tradition of rivalry. The “Mad Lions”, as the players of Arema FC are nicknamed, had never lost in their own stadium in twenty-three years. The team, which won the Indonesian championship in 2010, finished the 2021-2022 season in fourth place.
As soon as the match was over, supporters of the Malang team invaded the stadium and obviously tried to attack their players and the officials, who took refuge in the locker room. Videos then show riot police with shields and batons, and men in military fatigues, violently pushing back and bludgeoning supporters running on the lawn. At least two police vehicles were also returned to the edge of the field.
Violent behavior
Bursts of tear gas were then heard, first in the direction of the attackers, then the stands. No clashes took place between the fans of the two camps – those of the Surabaya team had in principle not been allowed to buy tickets for this match, a rule adopted to avoid fights between rival fans, to cries, most of the time, of “Sampai-mati! » (” until death ! “).
The panic that resulted from the intensive and indiscriminate firing of tear gas – witnesses explained that they had targeted the stands, when nothing was happening there – caused huge movements of the crowd towards the exits, where dozens of spectators, including women and children, were trampled, crushed, or suffocated in the absence of oxygen. “Every corner of the stadium was filled with tear gas. The spectators started to panic, it became even more chaotic. They ran for the exit, but it was blocked,” said Rezqi Wahyu, an Arema FC fan present in the stadium, at the Jakarta Post.
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