(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Fourteen people were killed yesterday in clashes between Egyptian police and Zamalek football club fans at a Cairo stadium, the official Mena news agency reported, raising an earlier death toll.
The agency quoted the state prosecution as saying 14 bodies of those killed in the clashes had been taken to a morgue.
The health ministry had initially said that three people died in the violence.
The clashes erupted outside the stadium in the city's northeast after fans tried to force their way into the venue to watch a game, the ministry said.
The match between the Zamalek and Enbi was open to the public, unlike most other games between Egyptian football clubs since deadly stadium riots in Port Said in 2012.
But the interior ministry had restricted to 10,000 the number of spectators allowed into the stadium, and tickets quickly ran out.
Angry members of the Ultra White Knights, a group of hardcore Zamalek fans, tried to force their way into the stadium, police said.
Police fired teargas to disperse them, before the Zamalek supporters let off fireworks, police and witnesses said.
Hospital doctors said the deaths were due to suffocation. A witness said some of the fans were killed in a stampede after the police fired teargas.
"Huge numbers of Zamalek club fans came to Air Defence Stadium to attend the match ... and tried to storm the stadium gates by force, which prompted the troops to prevent them from continuing the assault," the interior ministry said in a statement, without giving more details.
In February 2012, more than 70 people were killed and hundreds injured in post-match violence following a game in Port Said between Cairo's Al Ahly and Al Masry.
The riots, considered the deadliest in Egypt's sports history, were largely blamed on supporters of veteran leader Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in early 2011 after a popular uprising.
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