In Colombia, at least four people died and more than 300 were injured this Sunday by the collapse of the stands in a bullring during a bullfight in the municipality of El Espinal, in southern Colombia. “There are four people dead, one in the impact zone (…) three in the hospital,” the mayor of El Espinal, Juan Carlos Tamayo, said at a press conference, lamenting the death of ” a 14-year-old minor months ” who was on the wooden stands, reported the AFP agency.
The region’s hospitals treated a total of 322 injured people, four of whom remain “in an intensive care unit,” said Martha Palacios, secretary of health for the department of Tolima, where El Espinal is located. Several packed grandstands collapsed during a “Corralejo”, a kind of popular festival in which the public goes down to the arena to face steers or small bulls.
A petition to suspend animal-rights groups after the tragedy will be submitted
The accident occurred in the Gilberto Charry Bullring during the holiday weekend in which the San Pedro festivities are celebrated, the most popular in the region. The governor of Tolima, Ricardo Orozco, anticipated that he will request “the suspension of all these kinds of parties that are the Corralejo as”, alleging that the events “attempt against life” and encourage “animal abuse”, added AFP.
Yesterday, several people suffered injuries due to cattle accidents in the “Corralejo as” of El Espinal, a town of about 78,000 inhabitants located 150 kilometers from Bogotá. Another person died in mid-June from a goring during a “Corralejo” in the municipality of Repelón (north).
On the issue of “animal mistreatment,” Colombia’s president
The elected president, Gustavo Petro, joined the call of the local governor. ” I ask the mayors not to authorize more shows with the death of people or animals,” the senator who will take office on August 7 wrote on Twitter. As mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015), the elected president stopped the bullfights in La Santamaría, the capital’s emblematic bullring. Although Colombian justice punishes animal abuse, practices such as bullfights and cockfights are protected by their cultural roots.