Four people lost their lives on Friday in a stampede at the famous Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Another 16 people were injured, the local health authorities announced. TASR took over the report from the AFP agency.
The head of the Damascus province, Máhir Marwán, said that the tragic stampede occurred in the mosque during a “civic event”. A photographer and AFP contributor described crowds of people gathering near the mosque because they were there gave out food for free.
The newspaper al-Wátan reported that the stampede in the mosque broke out just as the food was being distributedwhich was organized by a certain celebrity. It should be about the chef nicknamed Chef Abu Omar, the star of the YouTube streaming service, who has a restaurant in Istanbul and the event in the Umayyad Mosque, announced it on social networks. The mentioned mosque was also visited in the morning Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajaniwho has been visiting Syria since Friday.
