Bulls are let loose every day for the eight days of the San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Spain, and people can run alongside them. This ancient tradition has helped the San Fermin to become one of Spain’s best known festivals. Every year visitors from all over the country and world come to see the bulls –and people- run through the streets of the northern Spain city.
On Sunday, July 12, four runners were injured in the run as one bull became separated from the pack and turned back on the runners. Up until Friday, this year’s festival was going well, with only bumps and bruises. But then, on the fourth day, a bull split from the pack and fatally gored an experienced Spanish runner. Two of the runners gored on Sunday were said to be seriously hurt and required emergency surgery.
The first death in the famous festival was recorded in 1924, and there have been a total of 15 people killed overall, including this year. While running of the bulls occurs in other Spanish towns and festivals, the San Fermin festival in Pamplona is the most famous. It has been popularized in movies and by American writer Ernest Hemingway, and it is also televised nationally in Spain.
The annual festival runs each year from July 7 through the 14th, and is said to have begun in the late 1500s. Pamplona, which has a population of roughly 200,000, is the capital of Navarre, an autonomous region on the northern border of Spain.
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