About 150 yards from the turnstiles at the Olembe Stadium stands a plain white-painted metal fence. There are Vs at the top of the posts for the addition of barbed wire, but none has been added. There are three gates in the fence, but only the left-hand one was open on Monday night. Separating it from the central gate was a temporary barrier. On Tuesday, it lay flat, buckled over a kerb by the side of a road, flattened by thousands of feet. It was there, during Cameroon’s Africa Cup of Nations last-16 victory over Comoros, that eight people died and a further 38 were injured.
An attempt has been made to clear up but inside the left-hand gate and on the avenue leading up to the South Stand, debris remains. There are shards of broken vuvuzelas, a sandal and a shoe, a pair of broken sunglasses and the shattered lens from another. An advertising banner lies twisted on the dusty concrete, wrenched in the chaos from its kiosk. Eyewitnesses say that, as they left the game on Monday, there were dozens of shoes and broken vuvuzelas in this area.
