Eight women were trampled to death in a stampede to receive alms being distributed by a charity in Mauritania ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, hospital sources and the event’s organizer said on Thursday.
A large crowd had gathered on Wednesday to receive the equivalent of around $30 per person that was to be handed out by wealthy businessman Zeine Abidine Ould Cheikh Ahmed in the capital Nouakchott.
Mohamed Mahmoud Issa, the director of Ould Cheikh Ahmed’s charity foundation, said that upon arriving at the scene he had gone in search of police reinforcements to control the crowd.
“It was on the way that we were informed by the police that the crowd of women had forced their way through the entrance,” he said. A number of women fell to the ground during the crush and were trampled upon, witnesses said.
