Saudi - Ikea 4

(updated 25th December 2006)

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Survivor Describes Brush With Death
Roger Harrison & Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab News

 JEDDAH, 2 September 2004 — The crush and desperation to be one of the first fifty in the crowd to receive SR500 vouchers from IKEA’s new store in Jeddah left three dead and at least 16 in hospital yesterday. One eyewitness, in a group that was first in the queue at midnight on Tuesday, described the scene yesterday morning as “medieval.”

The eyewitness — who used the name “D” for fear of retribution — went because, “I thought that it might be a bit of fun.”

Initially told to leave, the group was directed by staff to an area behind barriers until the morning. “It began to turn a bit nasty at about 4 a.m. when a group of another 20 or so women arrived and pushed to the front of the queue. ... They milled around “as if the store was about to open.” The expatriate group tried to organize a number system for the queue but more people arrived over the next hour or so, and the situation deteriorated. “By 6.15 a.m. they really were getting quite aggressive,” said D. “One of the women started fighting — spitting and hitting.” People had climbed over the crash barriers and the crowd forcing up to the barrier was as much as ten deep. She telephoned the store and asked the staff there for help, describing the situation to them in detail. “The situation at this stage was controllable. But at around 7.15 a.m. the situation became very nasty.”

“One family of about 20 people were particularly aggressive,” said D.

She wanted to leave at this stage, in tears and desperately trying to attract the attention of security who she said were not at the queuing point, but over a hundred meters away. “I had visions of Hillsborough,” she said, referring to the disaster in 1989 caused by crowds pushing forward at a football stadium and claiming 96 lives. At 7.30, “I told one of the security guards to help me out, but he wouldn’t. He told the crowd to get back, but they wouldn’t listen to him.”

The barrier was due to open at 8 a.m. to let people queue at the door. D was pinned, arms, legs and body, against the barrier; the pressure was so great from new arrivals at the back that the barriers began to move forward. Even then, the guards would not open them. Eventually, a European shouted at the guards to open the barriers, and at about 7.45 a.m. they did, “the crowd ran for it. They had no choice but to get the barriers down, because the crowd was pushing them forward.” D’s first thought was to stay upright for fear of being trampled. “I stood there in tears and just let them run past me,” she said. “It was a stampede. I have never seen anything like it. You couldn’t reason with these people, they were out of control. I saw one woman lying on the ground; I couldn’t see her breathing. ... I thought I was going to die.”

The crowd charged for the closed doors of the store. One man was videotaping the scene. “The women were getting upset at being filmed and they accosted him. Then all the Saudi men turned on him and started beating him up.” The crowd milled around by the entrance doors, 30 or 40 deep and began chanting for water. “When they didn’t get what they wanted they started going nuts,” said D. “We received some first aid training, but not enough to handle what happened here today,” an 18-year-old security guard told Arab News. It was his first job and his first day. “When we opened the doors, the whole crowd pushed forward trapping people against the metal barriers. People behind them fell and were trampled. “Several people were on the ground unconscious. I had cologne in my pocket and sprayed it on some people to help them wake up, but it didn’t work. There was one man, a Saudi, on the ground and not looking very good. “He died in front of me. I was telling him to say the Shahadah, but he wasn’t responding. I know he was dead,” the young man continued. “It was the first dead body I saw in my life. I will never forget it.”

One of the security guards who witnessed the stampede said, “There were not enough IKEA people or police here to control the crowd. We didn’t think it would be like this. Nothing in our training prepared us for this kind of thing. I thought all I would be doing here was controlling traffic.”

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