[imagesource: Supplied to The Daily Maverick]

21 people, many of them underage, died under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of Sunday morning at Enyobeni tavern in Scenery Park, East London.

It’s believed that the youngest person to die was just 13.

Footage shot before the incident occurred shows a packed venue with little to no crowd control.

The exact cause of death remains unclear, but initial autopsy results point to the cause of death being linked to something attendees inhaled or ingested, according to Unathi Binqose, spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Department of Community Safety.

He told The Daily Maverick the forensic pathologists “said it was something they ingested, possibly from the beers they were consuming, or something they inhaled from those hubbly-bubblies [water pipes or hookahs] that they were smoking”.

Three survivors spoke with News24 and revealed worrying (and sickening) details of what transpired:

[They ] say it was not an accident, but instead “well-planned murders”…

[They said] that a bouncer kept dumping bodies of those who died outside the door before locking it while more than 200 desperate revellers were trapped inside the overcrowded tavern screaming, coughing, and gasping for air…

All three friends were in agreement that the incident was suspicious.

The witnesses further described a well-built bouncer allegedly stopping people from entering or leaving the club, amid the panic.

Survivors were treated for symptoms including backache, tight chests, vomiting, and headaches.

While speaking at the Rural Safety Summit in Parys, Police Minister Bheki Cele told onlookers that teenagers began dying from shortly after 2AM through to around 4:30AM.

Again, from News24:

They die[d] as they danced. They dance, fall, and die – literally. Others would just feel dizzy, sleep on the sofa, [and] die. It tells you the story that they were all kids because somebody should have taken note.

“So, what they would do, as you fall, they would put you aside and dance – which tells you that these were kids who were supposed to be under their parents’ supervision,” Cele said.

I think it’s a little unfair to place this on the parents when it’s the venue owner, and those operating on the venue’s behalf, that need to be held accountable.

It’s believed the event was a “pens down party” which is held after the completion of the mid-year high school exams, hence the high number of teenagers in attendance.

Images from inside the venue, which can be found on social media but we won’t show here, show the bodies of those dead strewn across the tavern floor. Others can be seen “motionless on tables and couches”.

The story has gained a huge amount of international attention, too. The Washinton Post interviewed 18-year-old Kamvelihle Matafeni, who made it out alive:

…in the early morning, Matafeni said she saw something lobbed through the door and into the crowd. People around her began to scream. “I can’t breathe,” she heard them yell. “I’m choking.”

She pushed toward the door, struggling for air. “People were falling around me,” she said. “They were dying right in front of my eyes.”

Claims of something being sprayed were echoed by one of the survivors who spoke with News24 as well, who claims he saw a woman using pepper spray shortly before chaos erupted.

A woman who spoke with Al Jazeera backed that up:

The young woman had waited for her parents to go to sleep before sneaking out and claimed that when the nightclub became too overcrowded, people were asked to leave. When the partygoers did not comply, one of the security guards closed the door and began spraying a substance into the crowd, she said.

“The man at the door, I think he was a bouncer, he closed the door and we couldn’t breathe. We suffocated for a long time and [were] pushing each other but there was no use because some people were dying,” she said.

“It smelled like gas. I’m not sure if it was tear gas or pepper spray. Then some people died and I also fell asleep for three hours. Then when they woke us up, they also thought I was dead,” she continued.

The venue is apparently well known for serving underage drinkers, although it was far busier on Saturday and into Sunday morning than it usually is.

A Facebook post from the tavern advertising the party has also been widely shared.

What is clear, while we await the full results from the toxicology tests and post-mortems, is that there was a massive failure on the part of the venue to ensure anything close to a safe environment.

The tavern owner’s liquor license has been revoked and SAPS, via spokesperson Brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana, has asked for “sufficient space and time to conclude the investigation”.

No arrests have been made at this stage.

[sources:news24&news24&washpost&aljazeera]