29 killed, 70 injured in Karachi stamped

A stampede killed at least 29 women and children and injured more than 70 others in this southern Pakistani port city on 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 centre 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 on Tuesday, said Hanees Billu, a spokesman for the centre.

Witnesses said the fatal crush happened inside the compound of the centre after a woman bent down to help a young girl who had fallen, causing other people behind to trip over her. “I heard a girl crying for help and a woman stopped to pick her up,” said a 40-year-old woman who identified herself as Zaibunisa.