One person in ICU after car drives into crowd before Espanyol-Barcelona derby

The Catalan health department has reported that one person is in the intensive care unit (ICU) after a car ran over several people before the Espanyol-Barcelona derby on Thursday night.

The events occurred Thursday before the game started near the RCDE Stadium in Cornellà, ahead of the Catalan derby.

The health department reported 17 injured, one of whom had personally walked to a health center. The other 16 were assisted by the Catalan medical emergency unit (SEM).

Four of the injured are still in several hospitals, and one of them is in the ICU.

Videos of the incident were shared on social media.

A white car stopped in the middle of a crowd that was shouting at the occupants and throwing objects at the car, before the vehicle sped into the crowd, taking several people with it.

The driver of the car has since been arrested.

Catalan police reported that a person lost control of the vehicle and that the injuries sustained were only light.

At first, police said they considered the incident to be accidental. However, the police commissioner Eduard Sallent suggested that the driver did so because she felt "harassed" by the football fans.

Fan fury

Some fans expressed anger at the fact that it went ahead despite the incident. Cristian García asked "who thinks it's normal that a match can be played in these circumstances?" He was first worried that a terror attack may have happened when he first heard that a car had driven into a crowd.

Alejandro García, another Espanyol fan, was particularly angry at his club's board. He explained that a friend of his suffered a fractured leg. "How is the match played? And what are the board doing? Nothing. "It's a shame for the club and the board," he said.

Hugo Mulero explained to the Catalan News Agency that he saw the car "start to accelerate and take away the people at the front of it."