Egypt - Port Said. Soccer Match results in 73 people dead and hundreds injured as supporters of rival teams clash

Egypt - Port Said. Soccer Match results in 73 people dead and hundreds injured as supporters of rival teams clash.(Al-Jazeera).(BikyaMasr).At least 73 people have been killed in clashes after a football game in the northern Egyptian city of Port Said, medics say.About 1,000 others were injured in Wednesday's violence, including police. At least two players suffered light injuries.Fans of the winning al-Masry team flooded the field seconds after the match with al-Ahly, Egypt's top team, was over.A security official said the fans chased the players and cornered their supporters on the field and around the stadium,throwing stones and bottles at them.
Thousands of supporters covered the field, as seen in the video."This is unfortunate and deeply saddening. It is the biggest disaster in Egypt's soccer history," Hesham Sheiha, deputy health minister, said.He said most of the injuries were caused by concussion and deep cuts.
Al-Ahly football players were trapped in the changing room along with supporters. Riot police were sent in to drive the rival crowds of fans back.
Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of Egypt's ruling military council, sent army helicopters to transfer al-Ahly football players and injured fans from Port Said.
Private cars helped to shuttle the injured across the city to hospitals."This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us. There is no movement and no security and no
ambulances," al-Ahly player Abo Treika told the team's television channel."This is a horrible situation and today can never be forgotten."State television announced that parliament will hold an emergency session over the violence. State prosecutors ordered an investigation into the pitch invasion and the violence that ensued.The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest political force, accused supporters of the toppled president, Hosni Mubarak, of instigating the violence."The events in Port Said are planned and are a message from the remnants of the former regime," Essam al-Erian, a parliamentarian, said in a statement on the group's Freedom and Justice Party website.
Al-Ahly's supporter club, Ultras, said on their website that they would head to Port Said later in the evening.Ahly players said that police and armed forces were nowhere to be seen during or after the clashes and rumors were that the al-Masry fans, who initiated the attack after the match, were allegedly preventing the ambulances from entering the stadium for an hour and half.
Some players were also injured during the attack.Egyptian football club al-Ahly issued a statement giving their condolences for the 73 people killed and the hundreds who were injured on Wednesday night following the club’s match in Port Said. The club also announced a three-day mourning period starting Thursday and the suspension of all athletic and sport activities at the club.“These events have no relations to sports especially after it evolved violently against the Ahly fans,” said the statement that was signed by Hassan Hamdy, the general manager of the club. They also announced they are filing a complaint at the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF), the Egyptian parliament and the general prosecutor demanding an investigation into the violence,” the statement read.
The Ahly board is also scheduled to hold an emergency meeting.“We will not let these events pass by without bringing justice to the dead and their families,” the statement continued.
The team and their fans are now en route via planes to Cairo after the SCAF decided to send two military planes to evacuate them from the stadium after being locked inside for hours with the injured and dying.Read the full story here and here.