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Stampede after fireworks kills 61 in Ivory Coast

Police said most of those killed at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium were between 8 and 15 years old.Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — A crowd stampeded after leaving a New Year’s fireworks show early Tuesday in Ivory Coast’s commercial center, killing 61 people — many of them youths — and injuring more than 200, rescue workers said.

The death toll was expected to rise, the officials said.

Thousands had gathered at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Abidjan’s Plateau district to see the fireworks. After the show, the crowds poured onto the Boulevard de la Republic by the Hotel Tiama at about 1 a.m., said Colonel Issa Sako of the Fire Department rescue team.

‘‘The flood of people leaving the stadium became a stampede, which led to the deaths of more than 60 and injured more than 200,’’ Sako told Ivory Coast state TV.

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Most of those killed were between 8 and 15 years old, he said.

Desperate parents went to the city morgue, the hospital, and to the stadium to try to find children who were still missing.

Mamadou Sanogo was searching for his 9-year-old son, Sayed.

‘‘I have just seen all the bodies, but I cannot find my son,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know what to do.’’

President Alassane Ouattara and his wife visited some of those hospitalized and he pledged that the government would pay for their treatment, his office said.

The government organized the fireworks to celebrate Ivory Coast’s peace, after several months of political violence in early 2011 following disputed elections. It was the second year that Abidjan had a New Year’s fireworks display.

Hours after the stampede, soldiers patrolled the site, where victims’ clothes, shoes, and other debris littered the street.

State TV showed traumatic scenes: a woman sobbed in the back of an ambulance; another was bent over on the side of the street, apparently in pain; and another, barely conscious, was hoisted up by rescuers.

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There were also scenes of small children being treated in a hospital.

This is not Ivory Coast’s first stadium tragedy. In 2009, 22 people died and over 130 were injured in a stampede at a World Cup qualifying match at the Houphouet Boigny stadium, prompting FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, to impose a fine of tens of thousands of dollars on Ivory Coast’s soccer federation.

Associated Press