Terrible scenes marked the children's international tournament taking place in Sandanski this week. Boys from North Macedonia were attacked by a group of local boys, the main organizer of the competition, Yordan Touchev, announced. He himself became a direct witness to the clash, which took place meters from the Emergency Center building in Sandanski, reports gong.bg.
„At around 9:00 p.m., 4-5 boys from Sandanski, aged about 15-16, surrounded the visiting football players in front of the Emergency Center in the city. I met them face to face. I first asked the foreign boys what they were doing. One of them told me that they were returning from a shopping trip. I learned from the locals that the problem happened because someone said something to someone… I turned to the group from Sandanski and said: “You are going down.” I said to the group of football players from North Macedonia: “You are going up to the hotel”. I told the local boys that they should not scare these children, because by visiting the city and participating in the football tournament they are helping our city to have events and more guests. I told them that “ … tomorrow your parents will receive their salaries, which also helps that the city is full of tourists, you should not be aggressive”. The local children went down, and the athletes went to the hotel”, Tushev told “Struma”.
“After about an hour I learned that a new incident had occurred with the visiting children participating in the tournament. I understood that the boys and their coaches had gone for a walk in the park “Sveti Vrach“. After they left to go home at 10:00 p.m., there were about 40 children, the last ones in the column were attacked by a group of local boys. Their coach told me that a 112 call was made and an emergency team and the police officers on duty arrived at the scene. I was called by the visiting teams. They told me that they had been attacked, a large part of the team returned to help the attacked children and the group from Sandanski fled. One child from Sandanski tripped and was injured, so he sought help at the hospital. I was in the reception block until 11:00 p.m. and saw that the boy was in apparently good condition, able to communicate, and was answering the police's questions," added the tournament organizer.
„That evening, all the boys from Sandanski who participated in the attack were summoned to the police station. The local boys told the police that they were bored, they used to gather at the train station in Sandanski, but for a few days they moved to the park area”, said Yordan Touchev.
He added that among the attackers there were also adult boys from Sandanski and appealed to parents to talk to their children, to encourage them to play sports, and not to gather to impose violence. In the hotel where the visiting football players are accommodated, interrogations were carried out by the law enforcement agencies in order to establish the truth about the incident. “This is not the first case in which children participating in football tournaments in the city have been attacked in the park area in Sandanski”, added Touchev.