Ghana wears black as it prepares to bury victims of football tragedy

Ghana wore black Friday as it prepared to bury some of the victims of Africa's worst sports tragedy, amid public anger over the role of police in fuelling a football stampede that killed at least 126 people.

A three-day period of national mourning began Friday in memory of the victims of Wednesday's stampede in an Accra stadium, widely blamed on police overreaction.


About 1,000 relatives and friends of Muslim victims who had been identified, were waiting for authorities at Accra's 37 Military Hospital to hand over the corpses for burial later Friday.


Medical teams have conducted post-mortems to ascertain the causes of death. According to Islamic rites, the dead should be buried within 24 hours of their demise.


Funeral prayers for the victims were due to be conducted by Ghana's head cleric, Imam Sheikh Usman Nuhu Sharubutu. Many people in the capital were in mourning attire -- in black or the traditional red.


Ayishetu (eds: one name), a 39-year-old trader, said: "Two of my cousins are dead and they are using big words to delay us ... what do we need post-mortems for?"

"Don't you know what killed them? As Muslims we have to bury them quickly," she said, crying in the forecourt of the military hospital.


Officials said about 115 of the estimated 130 bodies had been identified so far.


The gruesome task of identifying dead bodies at morgues was continuing with thousands of friends and relatives thronging three city hospitals where the injured were admitted.


Ghanaian President John Kufuor late Thursday made a nationwide address on television where he promised that the guilty would be punished and appealed for calm amid the prevailing anti-police sentiment.


A visibly shaken Kufuor said anyone convicted in connection with the disaster would face "the full rigours of the law" and added that all the medical expenses of the injured would be borne by the state.

The president said a probe had been launched into the incident, and asked Ghanaians to contain their anger against the police.


"I am aware of the anger so many of you feel about the conduct of some policemen at the stadium last night," he said. "I am ... appealing to all of you to show restraint and calm."


Umar Baba Issah, a spokesman for Ghana's head Muslim cleric, Friday told AFP: "We have appealed to our Muslim brothers and sisters to be calm and not to talke the law into their own hands.


"We recognise that there is a lot of anger against the police but we need to be calm."


The Ghanaian press Friday took a neutral stand with factual reports on the aftermath of the tragedy. Headlines ranged from "A nation in tears: the day of horror and pain," "Nation goes into mourning" and "Bloody Wednesday."

However, private radio stations were inundated with calls, slamming the police for causing the tragedy. But at the same time, they ran appeals for public funds.


Officials said the appeal had already fetched donations of 200 million cedis (28,571 dollars).


Nii Armah, a spectator who helped save a nine-year-old boy from certain death, told AFP Friday that policemen guarding the 30,000-capacity stadium were squarely responsible for the disaster.


"The police were to blame. After the first firing of tear gas they should have stopped but they continued.


Wednesday's stampede at an Accra Sports Stadium occurred after a 2-1 victory by reigning league champions Hearts of Oak over arch rivals Kumasi Ashanti Kotoko.

Kumasi fans began to rip up seats at the stadium and hurl them onto the pitch, causing police to fire tear gas in the stands.


A stampede followed, trapping spectators inside the locked stadium, and killing at least 126, according to official estimates.