(CNN) At least 13 people were killed and 10 others injured Friday in a rush among people waiting for food donations during Ramadan in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, local police said.
Crowd crush is the latest in Series of fatal accidents At food distribution centers across Pakistan as citizens struggle with soaring inflation and rising costs of basic necessities.
Police said the victims of Friday’s crush were all women and minors. Among the dead were two boys, ages seven and 16, and a 9-year-old girl, according to Somaya Syed Tariq, a surgeon with the local police force.
Tariq said an 80-year-old woman, the oldest of the victims, also died.
Pictures taken in the admiring wake show personal items, including shoes, strewn on the ground.
Police said that among the 10 injured on Friday were a five-year-old girl and two boys who were taken to hospital.
The stampede occurred in an industrial area in Karachi, where FK Dyeing Company was distributing alms for the month of Ramadan, according to another police official, Vida Hussain Janwari.
Janwari said about 400 women had gathered to receive food aid.
Authorities arrested several company employees at the scene, accusing them of failing to establish safety protocols for queuing, according to January.
The deadly stampede comes at a difficult time for many in Pakistan, which is reeling from political instability, economic woes and an energy crisis. Record floods last year left millions of people dependent on aid, while record inflation sent food prices soaring.
a Nationwide power outages In January, nearly 220 million people were left without electricity.
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted last year after accusations of economic mismanagement as the crisis deepened. He recently appeared in court over allegations that he illegally sold gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries while he was in office, which he denied as “biased”.
Friday’s incidents are one of several similar incidents at food distribution centers in Pakistan.
Two people have been killed and 16 injured over the past week at two flour distribution sites run by the government in the northwest province of the country. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In a statement on Friday, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was “extremely concerned” about the lack of proper management at the aid centres, and called on the government to improve safety.
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