Monday, June 27, 2022

Al Jazeera says they spoke to a survivor from the South African nightclub disaster

Al Jazeera:
The young woman had waited for her parents to go to sleep before sneaking out and claimed that when the nightclub became too overcrowded, people were asked to leave. When the partygoers did not comply, one of the security guards closed the door and began spraying a substance into the crowd, she said.

“The man at the door, I think he was a bouncer, he closed the door and we couldn’t breathe. We suffocated for a long time and [were] pushing each other but there was no use because some people were dying,” she said.

“It smelled like gas. I’m not sure if it was tear gas or pepper spray. Then some people died and I also fell asleep for three hours. Then when they woke us up, they also thought I was dead,” she continued.

Sinethemba said when she awoke, her leg was numb and she could not stand up on her own. She then asked a patron to call her aunt so that she could be picked up.

WaPo quotes someone with a slightly different story:

Then, in the early morning, [she] said she saw something lobbed through the door and into the crowd. People around her began to scream. “I can’t breathe,” she heard them yell. “I’m choking.” She pushed toward the door, struggling for air. “People were falling around me,” she said. “They were dying right in front of my eyes.”