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Duisburg announces Love Parade memorial plans

As authorities on Tuesday announced that their Love Parade investigation would be long and difficult, the city of Duisburg revealed plans for a memorial to the 21 people who died in the stampede at the event on July 24.

Duisburg announces Love Parade memorial plans
Photo: DPA

On September 4, the Rhineland city will inaugurate a plaque with the inscription, “Duisburg remembers the victims of the Love Parade,” at the tunnel where the deadly crush occurred last month, a citizens’ group said.

People have been asked to remove the mementos, candles and notes at a makeshift memorial at the tunnel and put them into a glass cube that will be moved to the city centre. On September 4, the tunnel will be reopened and any leftover items will be removed.

Further plans include erecting a memorial stele designed by Duisburg artists to honour the victims within a year.

Love Parade organisers have been accused of allowing woefully inadequate security plans to channel hundreds of thousands of party-goers through a narrow tunnel into a main dance area for the techno music event, eventually causing the crushing deaths of 21 people and injuries to more than 500 others.

The main investigation into the tragedy has been handed to Cologne police, who along with the Duisburg state prosecutor’s office on Tuesday warned that it would take time to clarify what led to the deaths.

“The complexity of the preliminary inquiry makes it clear that these difficult and enormous investigations need time,” they said in a statement.

Millions of documents, along with some 900 hours of video surveillance and witness photos need to be analysed meticulously, they said.

There are also more than 1,000 items of evidence from both within Germany and abroad to be reviewed, and more witnesses to question, they said.

Four state prosecutors and more than 80 police investigators have been put on the case.

“Admittedly only a portion of the data will be relevant but we must gain a general view and separate the wheat from the chaff,” said criminal investigative director for the case, Stephan Becker.

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