International

Civil unrest

Reviewed 2026-07-26

Use at your own risk. For education and research only. Not medical advice. Check the numbers and rules for the country you are in, because they change. Before you rely on these cards, ask a medical professional or a fire safety specialist to review them. Disclaimer

Do this first

Leave the area at the first signs. Move calmly, sideways out of the crowd's direction, close to building walls.

A crowd changes character in seconds. The real hazards are crush, panic runs, projectiles and gas. Everything on this card follows from one idea: keep your distance, and if you cannot, keep your feet and your calm.

Step by step

Follow local news before you go out, and route around gatherings, transport hubs and symbolic squares on tense days.
If you are caught at the edge, leave immediately, diagonally, with the flow and gradually sideways, never against the stream. Walk, do not run.
If you are caught in a dense crowd, stay on your feet at all costs. Hold your arms up like a boxer to protect your chest, move with the mass and work towards the edge.
If you fall and cannot rise, curl up on your left side, protect head and neck with your arms, and get up the first instant the pressure eases.
Tear gas: do not rub, blink hard, and move upwind and uphill. Rinse eyes with water or saline from the inner corner outwards. Take contact lenses out as soon as possible.
Keep away from police lines, barricades and anyone throwing things, do not argue with anyone, and comply calmly at checkpoints.
Fix a meeting point with your group in advance in case you get separated, and message someone outside to say where you are.

Never do this

Never watch from the middle, from overpasses above the crowd or from your parked car in its path. Spectators make up a large share of the injured.
Never pick up thrown objects or gas canisters, and never film confrontations from arm's length. The camera makes you a participant in the eyes of both sides.
Never use the metro or underpasses to cross a rioting area. Being trapped below ground with a panicking crowd is the worst position there is.

Call emergency services if

Anyone crushed, trampled or struck unconscious, once you can reach them without joining the crowd.
Anyone with breathing trouble after gas exposure that does not ease in fresh air, especially people with asthma.
Fires, looting of buildings with people inside, or anyone trapped.

Common questions

What do I carry on a day tension is expected?

Comfortable closed shoes you can walk kilometres in, water, a charged phone and power bank, ID, a little cash, any daily medicines, and two ways home that avoid the centre. Leave at home any scarf that marks you as belonging to a side.

How do I recognise a dangerous crowd density early?

When you touch strangers on several sides at once and can no longer choose your own direction, you are past the safe point. Work towards the edge now. Waiting to see what happens is how people end up in the crush.