What began as a fun night out with free music turned into a horrific tragedy for one teenager over the weekend.
On Saturday night, hip-hop singer Y-Zet held a free concert in Mandalay that was, unsurprisingly, attended by thousands of people, most of whom were teenagers.
Unfortunately, said teenagers mixed with alcohol and little supervision — security from the night stated that they were unable to keep a close eye on everyone due to the sheer volume of the audience — is usually not a good combination. As multiple witnesses said to 7Day, several fights broke out over the course of the night. Ultimately, the event was shut down for security reasons, but not before one fight in particular got so out of hand that it ended in the death of one 19-year-old attendee.
According to 7Day, a group of four friends ganged up on another teenager, punching him and even beating him with a metal pipe. The fight apparently broke out when two different groups of people accidentally elbowed each other while dancing in the middle of the packed crowd. An officer told The Voice that once one group brought out steel pipes, the victim and his friends all tried to run; however, the victim was hit on the head before he could escape, and collapsed. Unable to move, the attackers kept beating him until police arrived.
The victim suffered head injuries and was brought to the Mandalay General Hospital for treatment, but eventually succumbed to his injuries.
Police were able to arrest the attackers, ranging in age from 17 to 20 years old, on-site. They also confiscated a steel pipe that measured two feet in length and 0.5 inches in diameter that the gang used to beat the victim.
“One person was bleeding a lot and had to be sent to the hospital. About five minutes later, the concert was stopped,” a security guard who worked the gig told 7Day.
According to officials, eight police officers and 30 private security officers were on duty that night.
MMC Security, the security company who was handling the event, explained that because it was a free promotional concert, it was difficult for them to properly conduct full security checks on all the attendees.
One concertgoer reiterated that there were a lot of people, some of whom had openly brought glass bottles with them. She recalls that after the brawl broke out, one person — presumably the victim — had a lot of blood on them. Later on, another fight started and people were throwing around the bottles, and security ended up shutting down the entire event.
Video footage from the night has been making its way around Myanmar social media, although it’s unclear which of the several brawls that broke out that night is shown in the video.
