This article may contain disturbing reporting.
The sight of them enshrined behind the gates at the Kanjuruhan stadium that claimed so many lives is chilling. They catch your eye and everything changes.
The shoes were left behind by the dead.
They are seated alongside the blue, contorted iron railings that have been ripped from concrete mountings. Walking in those shoes — the Adidas trainer, the flip-flop, the child’s red Croc — during those final moments came with fear, indescribable pain and, for so many, no way out.
“Open, open, open. Bring small children, bring small children,” was one of the panicked shouts heard on October 1 in those crowded stairwells as desperation took hold. Some were rescued. But many weren’t as one of the worst stadium disasters of all time, which claimed the lives of more than 130 people, took hold.
“The one who actually loves the football is my son Virdy,” his mother Elmiati tells The AthleticShe sat at home in Malang. “I’ve only been to three games and I’ve watched games with my son. He loves the crowds and also to dance, just like he does in that video when he was in stands… I’m so glad I got the chance to get that video.”
Held aloft on his father Rudi Hariyanto’s shoulders, three-year-old Virdy Prayoga raises his Arema scarf and smiles as the crowd sing ahead of the game. It’s an image of a treat, before the terror.
“All we were worried about before the game was pickpockets, but that’s just normal,” says Elmiati, whose elder daughter stayed at home. “Because there wasn’t going to be any Persebaya Surabaya fans (Arema’s great rivals), we didn’t think it would turn into a riot, that’s why we were looking forward to going all together. Fans poured onto the field after the match, but then the tragedy struck, especially since tear gas was being shot everywhere.
“My husband told me it’s time to go back home, so we rushed to get out,” she explains. Rudi, Virdy and Elmiati headed to gate 13. “But there were so many others trying to do the same. Many people came forward from behind and over pushing. They were pushing to save their lives. Someone picked me up and took me outside. I ran to the stands without knowing where they were or what had just happened. I got separated from my husband and son.”
They’d be torn from Elmiati’s life forever. “I can’t accept it that they left for the game all healthy and well, how come they come home lifeless,” she says.
Rudi Hariyanto, Elmiati and Virdy Prayoga are from left to right.
Rudi and Virdy were both killed in the crowd at gate 13, which was one of several exits that closed too late, or partially opened when the game ended. Rudi, Virdy and their families were not known by anyone on the other side. They were taken to two different hospitals. “I exploded at the morgue because I couldn’t bear to see my son’s body,” says Elmiati.
She held him close. That’s all she could do now. Father and son were reunited and buried at eight o’clock the next morning close to home.
Devi Athok, Andi Hariyanto and their daughters, Andi Hariyanto, were killed in the crush. Athok described the stadium scene as a mass grave. Hariyanto — who also lost his cousin — says he’ll never watch football again, and will devote his life to looking after his two-year-old son.
Revano Prasetyo (below) and Gabrielle Fenindra Yuda Putra, both youth-team players at the Indonesian third-division side Gestra Paranane were among the other young victims. Both supported Arema.
Revano Prasetyo (left), and Gabrielle Fenindra Yuda Putra died in the stadium tragedy
At least 30 children — between the ages of three and 17 — were killed at Kanjuruhan. It is a tragic tragedy that has ended so much hope for tomorrow.
“The first thing I did was hold his legs and they were like stone, so hard,” Bandi tells The Athletic “I then held his hand, there was no pulse. I reached for his chest and felt no breath. But he was still warm. I pulled the blanket from his chest and it was now blue. He was already dripping with saliva. I placed the blanket back over him.”
Bandi took care of that dead body on October 1. It wasn’t the last. Bandi isn’t from the emergency services, he is just a fan and he isn’t using his real name in this piece for fear of being identified by the local authorities.
“When I arrived in the room there were corpses everywhere,” he says, describing a haunting scene. “People were breathing their last breaths, you could see. All around the room, all I could hear was ‘Inna Lillahi wa inna Ilaihi Rajiun’ (‘We belong to Allah and to Him shall we return’, a traditional Muslim prayer said when someone dies).
“One person would say it because they could see someone was fading. Then, almost immediately, another person would repeat it for the other person. Then, the next one. They were moving together. It was horrible. Even now when I close my eyes I see that image of people dying all around me and that noise.”
Bandi had carried a child through gate nine before. At gate 10, he witnessed the brutal and graphic reality of those who didn’t make it.
“When the door was opened there were around five people stacked up on top of each other, one girl held her hand out to my friend. She was still alive,” he explains. “Lower down, one of the men was dead, his neck was broken and there was blood everywhere.”
“The woman keeps saying, ‘Please help me, please help me’, and we dragged her to the room I’d been in, but unfortunately when we got there, it was over, she didn’t make it.”
Bandi, who’d been to see his beloved Arema, was now immersed in an aftermath akin to a warzone.
“Some of the corpses that I’d seen inside were transported to hospital not using an ambulance, but a police truck,” he gestures with his hand higher and higher showing layers. “They were stacked, piled. You know the one thing that I’m not sure about? I’m afraid people hadn’t died yet, and they kept being put in the truck.”
Official death toll for the Kanjuruhan stadium disaster is 131. But, as one medical professional advised The Athletic in private, “this is an open disaster”. The premise: we’ll never know the exact number of casualties. Some people arrived in their cars at the game, and died in the crush and stampede. They were then cradled by their loved ones on grass verges outside of the stadium and taken home to be buried among the nearby villages and towns. As such, their deaths won’t be in the official records.
Malang is vibrant, colorful, and kind. The city’s sub-tropical climate is hot and humid. It can see deluge rain at times. There are brightly-colored homes, paddy fields rarely visible, and the constant buzz from mopeds.
It is now in mourning.
Arema fans gathered in black outside the town hall to hold a candlelight vigil and seek comfort during the days following the tragedy. The relief was temporary, with the help of a Muslim prayer, the singing of club anthems and solemn reflections. Wednesday evening saw the bustling town-hall roundabout come to a halt. Mopeds were stopped and people stopped for reflection.
“That night was really terrifying and filled with unfathomable grief that should not happen in a football world because the supporter wants to watch peacefully, but something unthinkable has befallen us,” Ali Rifki, Arema’s team manager, tells The Athletic. “I came to Aremania to share my sorrow with them. I’m really thankful and moved.”
Arema players took care of the dying and dead in their own dressing room at the stadium on the night of the tragedy. The disaster reached the VIP area. There’s a memorial at the stadium now, where the distinctive smell of flower petals are scattered under the statue of the club’s lion figurehead and also at the gates that turned a night of enjoyment into hell.
The result of one of the worst stadium disasters in history was a series of errors. Although some fans were involved in the disaster, it appears that the severity of the situation was not due to them. It was more to do the poor management of the match by authorities who were hapless and heavy-handed.
Arema — coached by Chilean Javier Roca, who is known to have been hit hard by the tragedy — last won the league 12 years ago and are known as “Singo Edan” or “The Mad Lions” in Javanese.
There was deep concern among police over the fixture throughout the week. Some of the drama was removed from the meeting with Persebaya Surabaya rivals, with away fans being prohibited. The teams’ rivalry intensified in 1995 when Arema fans attacked the Persebaya team bus and shattered glass, blinding gifted player Kisa Pilu Nurkiman in one eye, who had to retire.
Police claim they were acting on intelligence and asked the league for the kick-off to be moved earlier, from 8pm to 3:30pm. The league’s president Akhmad Lukita declined the request and wanted it to be played at prime time instead. The police were forced to play second fiddle.
Arema’s 3-2 defeat — the first time Surabaya had won at their ground in 23 years — was the worst possible result, but needn’t have contributed to a situation that became out of control.
The pitch invasion that began after the game ended at 9.40 pm was very small. There was a much larger crowd. More Arema fans — who often try to get on the field after games — let their frustrations be known. Adilson, the home goalkeeper, had to be protected using batons and riot shields by police.
Once the players were inside the tunnel, combined forces of police, army and special forces unit Korps Brigade Mobile, (Brimob), tried to get the fans back into the stands (known collectively as tribunes). Although it worked initially, dogs were also deployed.
Some fans were left in dismay when it was discovered that not all of the doors had been opened. Usually, they’re opened five minutes before the end of games.
When fans on the pitch didn’t fully retreat, the first phase of tear gas was deployed by Brimob officers in multiple locations on the field (as shown in the video above), and that initially drove many fans to the north end of the stadium. Gas canisters with secondary explosions were often used to fire directly into the tribunes. This was to be used in busy areas, where fans were not yet present.
The use of tear gas — which is against FIFA rules within stadiums — was the gear change that ultimately led to the authorities losing control. One video was seen by The AthleticThis video clearly shows the moment that a Tribune was targeted. It also illustrates the knock-on effect. From the epicenter of the explosion, fans charge to their left for exit 6, but more to the right for exit 7.
Scene at gate 7.
Exit seven was the most dangerous. Railings buckled under the pressure of people traffic. This was visible around the stadium, where six more exits were damaged. “The south got the most severe actions from the police,” says Adi who was at the game. “Us on the north side were only shot once each at most, the south side was bombarded by the tear gas — that’s why the casualties were greater on that side.”
Fans had severe difficulty getting out of gates 10, 11, 12 and 13 — the latter is where Virdy, Rudi and countless others died due to the crush.
The Athletic The gate 13 and many other gates were filmed to show the damage done to the stairwells and exit gates. Also, it was evident that the wall along which the fans broke through the wall was filmed. It is not possible to fully verify exactly how long the gate (or others) remained closed until CCTV is released, but it’s known from various eyewitness testimonies that gates 13, 12 and 11 weren’t opened on time.
Yoyo claims he could see the escalation but not the police who haven’t responded to any of his requests. The Athletic’s questions about the disaster, didn’t listen.
“I heard that there was a small child screaming for help, crying, and many mothers crying asking for help because their children were also struck by the effects of the tear gas,” he says. “I had no intention of entering the field, but I wanted to try to do something to stop what was happening. I first shook hands with the police and told them to stop because the women and children were in trouble.”
Yoyo sent footage of the incident. The Athletic
“After that, another policeman came to yell at me, I was told to leave but then I got attacked by another policeman. I don’t know why they attacked me. I don’t know how many police officers attacked me, but I just tried to protect my head.”
National Police Chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo confirmed some gates weren’t fully opened for almost 20 minutes after the end of the game. “Exit gates should have been opened five minutes before the match ended. In addition, guards or stewards were nowhere in sight when the incident broke,” he said.
There are shops and cafes built into the undersides the tribunes that run outside the stadium. Nanang Fendi, (below), manages the shop at gate 10. “Here was open but only a little door,” he tells The Athletic As he cleaned up, he stood outside the gate. “But 13, 12 and 11 were all closed. The casualties were taken from 13, 12 and 11 and brought out here. Both alive and dead. He points to the tiled floors to his left and to his right in his cafe. This is where many people gather. I don’t know how they must… I can’t talk any more.”
Nanang Fendi manages the shop just outside Gate 10 of the stadium
“I don’t know who they are but many people died in my shop. We tried to save them. Sixteen were sent to the hospital. Only one survived. On Monday I came into the shop for the first time and I tried to clean it up but all I was hearing in my mind was them still running and screaming, I couldn’t handle it so I went home.”
Nanang was acutely aware of the absence of ambulances and trained medical personnel to care for the sick and dying in the region where he lived. “There is only one road in and there were traffic jams, so they weren’t coming here,” he says. “We tried to find some cars, we say to people if they have a car, let’s take those who have died to the hospital first and I was focused here.”
Despite the chaotic scenes outside, police prioritized getting Persebaya Surabaya’s squad out of the stadium in two armoured vehicles as soon as possible. However, there were evident delays due to the chaos. A few fans were angry at how they were treated and vandalized a police vehicle near the pitch. Two eyewitnesses claim that dogs from the K9 unit had begun to run free in the stadium by this time. One victim was reported to have been bit on the upper torso. Another witness saved a dog who had been abandoned in distress.
The Wava Husada hospital has a medical partnership agreement with Arema. For a long time, there were only three ambulances available on the site. “Most of our health personnel were in the medical room to help with people who were brought there,” Isabella Angelin, head of the hospital’s emergency department unit, says. “There was also a limited amount we could do because of the limited amounts of equipment and medicine. We only had four cylinders of oxygen.”
RSUD Kanjuruhan, the closest hospital, is located just outside the stadium. “I had a report from my emergency call centre. They sent me photos of victims at the scene,” the hospital’s director Bobi Prabowo explains. “It wasn’t clear if they were alive or dead. Then I made sure the emergency room was fully staffed. I issued a command to all ambulances to come to me. Six ambulances were immediately put on standby. Because there weren’t any cars allowed near the stadium and there was said to be violence, I waited for information from the local police. By 12.30am we were told by the police we could go.”
Between 10pm and 10.30pm, the first reports that fans were in danger appeared. Two hours were needed before the nearest hospital was able to allow ambulances to enter the area. Other private ambulances had difficulties accessing the vast stadium campus.
“This is about the disaster preparedness,” says Prabowo. “Three months ago we practised the emergency preparedness with healthcare and police in the Malang area about communication, how to prepare ambulances, how to activate the emergency response. In the future we hope the response is standardised, because the safety of people, access points and coordination inside the stadium were very poor.”
Angelin, from Wava Husada, three miles from the stadium, says the issues stemmed from how the fans were managed by the authorities: “I think the crowd control (was key),” she says. “Because at the beginning we can’t deny the supporters started going on the field. But I think maybe there are other ways to mitigate the crowd.”
Kanjuruhan Stadium was packed with 42,000 fans. Many of these fans never came home. However, some managed to escape such as Ahmed Hadi Mulyo. The Athletic He was admitted to RSUD hospital. He is still recovering from a broken foot.
“He was helping his friend who had passed out when he was hit by tear gas and had been trampled on,” his mother Ruliani, who has stayed by his bedside ever since explains. “He saw his friend had fainted so he tried to save him from being stepped on further but my son forgot his own safety.”
Ahmed Hadi Mulyo’s mother, Ruliani
It involved scaling the perimeter fence. “His feet got caught and his head was below and he was hanging for around five to 10 minutes,” says Ruliani. “He fell and then needed his friend to help him because he was in such pain. Thank God his friend started to wake up, he’d been crushed and then stepped on by the other person. They’d joined a group of ten at the game, only nine came home but it could have been less. This traumatized many. I’m thankful he made it, but I’m heartbroken too. We must take a lesson from this.”
Much like the scenes on the tiled floors and grass verges outside the gates of the stadium and the VIP section in the main stand at Kanjuruhan, the rooms, corridors and receptions of Malang’s hospitals were cleared for victims of the disaster.
“The initial wave was about 20 people or so,” Angelin (below) at Wava Husada explains. “Maybe two or three of them died, but the peak of the victims was about 12 to 1am, when about 100 victims were treated here. It was called disaster triage. We put the people who had died or were in very serious condition in a room. Then we took a photo of them to show their families. I can only describe it as very chaotic because a lot of people died that were brought here.”
Isabella Angelin, head of the Wava Husada hospital’s emergency department unit
“We can’t be certain of their cause of death as there were a lot of bodies and very few doctors that night, so we can’t do extensive examination,” she says. “Many of them were hypoxic, from panic, the tear gas, the rushing to the gates, and very close together in a small space — all of those factors contribute. We provided basic first aid for those who were still alive. We used oxygen and an IV line to provide oxygen, and we also applied bandages and splints to broken limbs. Then in the morning, a lot more ambulances from the health office came to help so the people with severe injuries could be diverted to other hospitals.”
Wava Husada was able to process 53 deaths. Fifteen weren’t able to be identified so were sent to another large hospital RSSA, where a further 59 deaths were confirmed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
“If we’re talking about emotions, I can’t speak,” Malang mayor Sutiaji says. As he talks, he pauses to collect his composure. The Athletic At the crisis center that was set up after the disaster, on the grounds of the town council. “As a resident of Malang City, I’m not accepting it being seen as a riot by football goers. There’s only regret and tears after seeing the victims. I can see how hard it is for the grieving families, who only ask for a justice.”
The government determines the shape of justice. The laser-guided precision of president Joko Widodo’s arrival at Karujuhan on Wednesday in an entourage of more than 40 vehicles with legions of police, army and Brimob personnel was a stark reminder that when things really need to be done properly, they can be.
Now ‘Jokowi’ is promising significant change with the league suspended and subject to an independent review, with all stadiums in the country’s three leagues audited. He asked: “Are the gates, according to standards, wide enough? Are the gates sized according to field management standards and who is in control?”
“From this incident we have to fix everything, match management, field management, stadium management, we have to evaluate everything. I don’t want this incident to happen again in our country.”
The overarching aim, especially with Indonesia set to host FIFA’s Under-20 World Cup next year, is to show that the country is in control and reacting to the shock with swift action. It will be clear when it becomes meaningful.
The Indonesian league banned Arema from hosting matches with fans or playing within 250 kilometres of their current home, in addition to being fined 250,000,000 IR (around £15,000). The club’s match organising chair and head of security were also banned from football for life.
Meanwhile, the police announced six leading suspects — including the league’s president Lukita and key heads of Malang police and Brimob — who they feel contributed significantly to the catastrophic failures at Kanjuruhan. Other lower-ranking officers and serving officers were also questioned. Some of them were suspended in the interim.
Victims were told by the government they would receive 50 million Indonesian Rupiah (just under £3,000 in compensation) for their loss and given a relief fund. When The Athletic visited the home of Elmiati on Wednesday she’d also been provided with some large bags of rice, noodles and other food supplies.
“The decision to provide compensation will not absolve anyone of their responsibility,” Amnesty International’s deputy director Wirya Adiwena tells The Athletic “Judicial process and investigations that are open, fair and transparent are vital. After we determine who is to blame, victims have the right to compensation. Anything that anyone gives during this period does not count and should not be used to stop judicial proceedings. If there is any information of providing financial obstructs then foul play should be considered.”
A report has been launched by the human rights body on the decline in civil liberties in Indonesia. Adiwena continues: “The president or other people should not go ahead (or conclude) the investigations to say what has gone wrong. This raises more questions than it answers. If the result of this incident doesn’t change any procedures at a time when police have been ushered to use excessive force it shows how those in authority are judging the incidents, truly as a tragedy or something they should handle like a PR stunt.”
It’s hard to imagine what many fans thought about their treatment by police after graffiti was spray-painted on the stadium’s walls. ACAB stands for All Cops Are Bastards.
Additional graffiti was added to the stadium walls
“We will check whether the police force are right or wrong,” Albertus Wahyurudhanto — the head of Indonesia’s Independent National Police Commission — tells The Athletic “We look for any misconduct that causes negative action, like making the crowd very uncontrolled and a result of many people dying. We have to check the whole process and ensure that everyone is safe. We must learn from this incident and any regulation for safety in the match, we must refresh the way things are organised.”
Locals set up collection boxes in Malang’s bustling streets to collect donations for people who lost loved ones in the tragedy. But they deserve much more. “We need justice for our citizens to be relieved from the tragedy and the grieving families know the government needs to be there for them,” says mayor Sutiaji.
“The souls of 131 were lost in minutes, not even hours. They’ve disappeared. The country needs to serve justice, so we can feel we are in a country where the law stands tall, we are protected, so this could be a lesson for anyone in the future.”
(Top image: Eamonn Dalton)
