4.12.2006

Muslims Trampled To Death?! B-But It's Not Even Wednesday!

Oh Well...Happy Birthday, Mo!

Pakistan Stampede Kills 29

from The Associated Press

KARACHI, Pakistan - A stampede killed at least 29 women and children and injured more than 70 others in this southern Pakistani port city Sunday as thousands filed out of a religious seminar to mark the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, police and doctors said.

The stampede occurred outside the Sunni Muslim Faizan-e-Medina center in downtown Karachi as the crowd left to attend a rally, after listening to clerics deliver sermons on the life of the 7th Century prophet whose birthday is celebrated Tuesday, said Hanees Billu, a spokesman for the center.

Blood, shoes and black veils littered the scene of the stampede near the gate to the Islamic center. Administrators of the center barred photographers and reporters from entering the premises to take pictures or interview people.

Doctors said most of the deaths were caused by internal injuries and suffocation, while more than 40 of those injured were in "very serious conditions," said Abdi of the Liaqat hospital.

"Numerous innocent lives perished, [but] they embraced martyrdom and we pray for their eternal peace," said white-bearded Hafiz Hassan Attari, a senior official from the Dawat-e-Islami missionary group that runs the center.

Islamic religious events are often marred by stampedes, particularly during the hajj pilgrimage to the cities of Medina and Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

More than 360 people died in Mina, outside Mecca, in January, while a 1990 hajj stampede killed 1,426 pilgrims.

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