“I loved my son very much. I can’t talk about him without crying,” says Mory Sanoh, as the tears come again and his voice breaks. “Who can bear such a tragedy?”

Lacinte, his seven-year-old son, did not make it out of the Stade du 3 Avril alive on December 1, as one of the world’s worst stadium disasters unfolded in Nzerekore, the second-largest city of the West African country Guinea.

“My son went to watch the game. When I returned home from work, everyone was asking about him. Then I heard there had been an incident at the stadium,” Sanoh said from his home in the south east of the country.

“I’m in a lot of pain. That a child you loved very much should be taken away from you? I leave it to God, I have no other choice, because if I did, I would make those responsible for his death pay.”

Guinea’s government says 56 people died in the disaster, but domestic human rights organisations believe they have verified that at least 135 people – a significant number of those children – have lost their lives. Investigations into what happened and why are underway as some people still search for their loved ones at hospitals and morgues.

“I saw death that day. There were many dead people around here,” says Amadou Doumbouya, sitting at his refreshment stall across the road from the community stadium. “I saw bodies that people were carrying in their arms to take them back to their families. Others were brought to the youth house on the other side. There were even bodies that were dumped in the alley on the other side. I saw it all.”

The majority of the victims died as fans ran towards the main entrance of the stadium after police and security forces fired teargas inside the venue to combat crowd disturbances towards the end of a heated match between local side Nzerekore and Labe. The game was the final of a tournament designed for younger supporters and linked to Mamady Doumbouya, the military leader of the nation.

Today the ground bears the scars of its tragedy. When he thinks of the main gate, Emmanuel Sagno from the Guinea Organisation of Human Rights (OGDH), says: “This door here, it’s the door to hell.”

The Athletic travelled to Nzerekore – which has a population of approximately 200,000 – to visit the stadium, analyse what happened and speak to eyewitnesses and relatives, like Mory and many more, who are grieving and searching for the truth.

The main gate is a picture of contorted metal in Guinea’s national colours of red, yellow and green. It echoes the pain and fear of December 1.

One of its doors is precariously hanging onto the concrete wall by its lower hinge, the other forced off its fixings entirely in the most significant fatal crush at the stadium. Both doors are twisted and bent out of shape, their frames buckled as a reminder of the force that tried to make its way through in the chaos.

Just a few hours before the game, fans excitedly flooded in off the busy road outside, many on their motorbikes that were parked on the outskirts of the Stade du 3 Avril, which commemorates the start of Lansana Conte’s presidency after a coup in 1984.

People had come for the final of a two-week tournament put on by a youth organisation – Alliance des Jeunes Leaders du le Foret (Alliance of Young Leaders of the Forest) – to garner support for Doumbouya, the military leader. The trophy bearing his name was paraded before the match.

This was the climax of the ‘Refoundation’ tournament, targeted at younger supporters. It was free to enter, meaning a ground that usually holds 5,000 swelled – according to those at the game – to closer to 15,000 or 20,000. The game was originally due to begin at 2:30pm, according to referee officials, but organisers – who wanted to ensure they got the chance to rally the crowd with political messages – pushed it back until 5pm. The consequence? More and more people came in.

Before the game, there was a colourful carnival but, by the end of the day, it was carnage.

In the 68th minute of the match, the first contentious decision drew a heated response from the crowd. “The referee gave what he thought was a second yellow card to a player from Labe, so there was a bit of noise when he gave the red card,” explains Marie Louise Caulier, a journalist based in Nzerekore. “It was corrected to just a yellow and the organisers and authorities managed to calm people down and they resumed play.”

As the game – on the uneven, sandy surface – reached its climax, tempers flared on the field. “There was the penalty disputed and I saw a stone thrown from one corner and I said, ‘This isn’t going to end well’. The size of the crowd scared me,” says Andre Sagno, a local teacher, who was also at the game.

“Suddenly everyone started running and in the chaos, we all went to one door. But then we were being suffocated by the teargas. There were (also) stones being thrown to the east.”

The majority of the fans headed to the main gate but initially, it was not fully open and the weight of human traffic quickly led to a bottleneck. As the gates were pushed out, people at the front were crushed and fell, those behind could not move and a mass of bodies became stuck with more and more pressure coming from behind.

“We saw a route to the big gate, so we rushed out, but those ahead of us had no access to get out,” says Feromo Beavogui, another journalist who attended the match. “When those on the outside realised there was a commotion on the inside, rather than opening the gate, they continued to barricade the exit.”

Beavogui was edging closer to the main gate: “We were stuck in the middle of a huge crowd. I was in the crush, but someone saved me by grabbing my hand and pulling me up. I was lucky I had my hands up, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get out. Throughout this, there was the teargas, which wouldn’t stop. It just wouldn’t stop…”

Footage taken from the stand next to the main gate shows people being pushed towards the gate by vehicles trying to force their way through the crowds. In desperation, witnesses say some people ran over the top of the people who were stuck.

There were two other exits at the ground. One is approximately 100 metres along the perimeter wall in the corner of the ground. That gate was also partially blocked. One of the two doors remained closed, meaning a six-metre opening – similar to the main gate – was only three metres wide. People died at that gate, too.

At the opposite end of the ground, there was a third exit, which was only marginally wider than a normal household door. In the panic, people broke through the concrete wall next to it to try to make their way to safety as another crush developed.

“We rushed to the smaller door, but there we were threatened,” says teacher Sagno. “Some hooligans were mixed up with the security, they were pickpocketing, I even saw knives being used to threaten some people. So we had little choice but to climb the wall to get out. You would climb the wall and then help someone else up. We barely saved our lives. The images of that day still haunt me.”

Marie, who had recently given birth via caesarean section, was nearby.

“We tried to leave on the other side through the small gate,” she says. “But they (security forces) threw more gas in front of us. So we turned around. I took my vest and put it up to my nostrils, but it wasn’t helping. My eyes, my nostrils, everything hurt. I couldn’t breathe. My friend said, ‘We’ll jump the wall’. I said, ‘I can’t jump the wall, If I try to go over there I’ll die’. Besides, can I climb the wall in my condition?”

The walls are approximately 10 feet tall (three metres) on the inside of the ground, with the road level lower down outside the perimeter, meaning the drop is significantly greater in some places. Some were severely injured or died as they fell.

“We didn’t know where to go and we were running around breathlessly. Fortunately, there was a regional inspector who I’d like to thank. He’s the one who helped us. We got into his vehicle and stayed there until it was safe.”

Many didn’t find sanctuary or any way out.

As the light dwindled on the evening of December 1, bodies lay on the ground outside the stadium and on the pitch. Cars ferried the dead and dying to the hospital, which quickly became overwhelmed. Bodies were lined up in the corridors.

Some families took their relatives home with them without any record of their death or post-mortem carried out, making a comprehensive final death toll difficult to establish.

• A tell report / Republished from The Athletic