A stampede at a Cairo soccer stadium on Sunday ended in the deaths of at least 19 people, Reuters reported.

Egyptian security forces had used tear gas to curtail fans who were trying to force their way into a league match, and most of the dead were suffocated in the ensuing panic, the news service detailed.

A health ministry spokesman said that 19 individuals had perished in the incident and that 20 more had been injured. The public prosecutor's office, however, put the death toll at 22. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers could not be immediately determined, Reuters said.

Soccer matches, such as Sunday's duel between Cairo clubs Zamalek and Enppi, have been known as a "flashpoint for violence" in Egypt, the news service noted. In February 2012, 72 fans were killed at a match in Port Said, and organizers have since curbed the number of people allowed to attend. Fans, however, have often tried to storm stadiums.

In a move similar to one adopted after the 2012 tragedy, Egyptian authorities on Sunday suspended soccer league matches indefinitely, according to the BBC. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi announced an investigation of the incident and expressed his "great sorrow" over the deaths.

Authorities charged that thousands of ticketless Zamalek fans had tried to gain entry to the Air Defense Stadium. They "attempted to storm the stadium gates by force, which prompted police to prevent them from continuing the assault," the interior ministry detailed.

"Because of the stampede, some choked and died from asphyxiation, while the rest died from being trampled," a police official told the state-run newspaper, al-Ahram.

Fans, meanwhile, accused police of forcing them through a 12-foot, fenced-in passageway.

"(The) iron cage inside which most people died was installed a day before the match and it has never been used in any country of the world," an attendee wrote on Facebook.

A group of radical Zamalek fans, meanwhile, charged that authorities had carried out a planned, politically motivated "massacre," Agence France-Presse noted. Members of the so-called Ultras White Knights in the past have been at the forefront of previous anti-government protests, the news service explained.