Two teenage soccer fans died following a confrontation with police ahead of Colo-Colo’s Copa Libertadores match against Fortaleza on Thursday.
The incident took place ahead of the game. Police general Alex Bahamondes told TVN police were responding to approximately 150 fans trying to enter Colo-Colo’s Estadio Monumental in Santiago, Chile.
Colo-Colo confirmed in a statement that two of their fans had died while CONMEBOL, the organising body of the Copa Libertadores, said: “We express our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones.”
Bahamondes told TVN that the victims were an 18-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy.
A shattered glass fence in the Monumental stands following confrontations between fans and police
“Approximately 150 people entered (the stadium) with a sledgehammer and overflowed the fences surrounding the security perimeter,” Bahamondes said on the Chilean TV station.
Bahamondes confirmed the vehicle involved in the incident was “a police vehicle, which supposedly participated to maintain public order, but there is no certainty about whether that was the case.”
Prosecutor Francisco Morales, via Chilean media outlet Emol, said that an investigation has commenced into whether a police car was involved in the deaths.
“At the moment, what is known is that one of the bars crushed these two youngsters with a greater weight, a force that could be attributable to different causes, and all of them are being investigated as possible working hypotheses to determine the final cause of these youngster’s deaths,” Morales said.
Morales said the “preliminary information” indicated that the two individuals who died were part of a group “of at least a hundred”, who he claimed “had attempted to break down the fences in an attempt to gain entry to the Monumental Stadium, and it is in this unclear context, for now, that the incident took place.
“We are working with all the technical resources available, including the cameras on site, to determine how the events unfolded.”
Colo-Colo fans invaded the pitch in the 72nd minute, causing the game to be abandoned
Morales added that no arrests have been made although “the person who was driving the car is currently a suspect”, adding there was “no reason to warrant his arrest at this time”.
Despite the incidents ahead of the match, the game kicked off and proceeded normally until its suspension in the 72nd minute, when a group of Colo-Colo fans invaded the pitch amid the situation.
(Photos: Javier Torres/AFP via Getty Images)