At least 19 people died Sunday when soccer fans clashed with police outside a stadium in Cairo, the health ministry said.
Egypt’s government-controlled Al-Ahram newspaper website reported that at least 30 people were killed.
The violence took place ahead of a scheduled match between Zamalek and ENPPI. The match went ahead.
The Interior Ministry blamed the violence on fans who didn’t have tickets and tried to push their way in.
“They climbed the fence. Ten were injured in a stampede. The security forces tried to disperse them, the fans fled to the main road and blocked traffic and stopped the bus carrying the Zamalek soccer team. They set fire to a police vehicle. We got reports of fatalities because of a stampede,” that ministry said in a statement.
But the Facebook page of the Ultras White Knights, a hardcore Zamalek group, said that members were tear gassed as they tried to go through a single, small-gated entrance that was opened to allow them into the match.
Egypt’s general prosecutor is sending a team to investigate. In the wake of the violence, the country’s Cabinet indefinitely suspended the country’s Premier League soccer matches, Al-Ahram reported.
Victims from Sunday’s clashes were taken a morgue in central Cairo, where family members and friends waited for the bodies.
Some fans from a rival club showed up at the morgue as a show of solidarity with those killed.
Sunday’s violence is the deadliest soccer-related violence in Egypt since a 2012 stampede left more than 70 people dead and 1,000 injured at a match in the city of Port Said.