Hundreds of people in Kumasi, including members of the national rugby team led by the Ghana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) president, Herbert Mensah, are embarking on a brisk walk through some principal streets in the metropolis to mark the 22nd anniversary of the May 9 football tragedy that claimed 127 lives at the Accra Sports Stadium in 2001.
Herbert Mensah, who was chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko when the stampede occurred at the North Wing of the Accra Stadium during a crunch league game with archrivals Accra Hearts of Oak, rallied for support to campaign against violence at football matches.
The match was also to drum home strongly among football fans that they were “first and foremost brothers and sisters”.
Since that ill-fated incident, Mensah has made it a personal crusade to commemorate the event in Accra and Kumasi by either leading a peaceful walk by fans of the two sides or making donations to survivors of the stampede and relatives of victims of the tragedy.