Your trusted source

Tanzanian police announced Tuesday that 45 people had died during a stampede in Dar es Salaam on March 21 as mourners paid their last respects to the late president John Magufuli, AFP reported.

The crush took place when thousands of grieving citizens tried to push their way into a stadium in the city to bid farewell to Magufuli, whose sudden death after a mysterious absence was announced on March 17.

"There were a lot of people who wanted to get in the stadium, and some were not patient. They tried to force their way in and that resulted in a stampede. Forty-five died in the accident," Dar es Salaam regional police commander Lazaro Mambosasa told AFP.

Five of the deceased were from the same family, Mambosasa said. A woman and four children were earlier reported crushed in the accident at Uhuru Stadium, though the true toll of the stampede was not announced at the time.

Mambosasa said several dozen were also injured in the crush but most had been released from hospital.

Magufuli's body was transported to Tanzania's major cities of Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Zanzibar, Mwanza and Geita, before being finally laid to rest in his ancestral village of Chato, in the country's northwest, on March 26.

Tens of thousands came out to pay their respects, lining roads, weeping and running alongside the casket as a military motorcade moved through the cities.

The stampede took place on the second day of tributes at Uhuru Stadium in Dar es Salaam, when the public was allowed in to pay their respects.