KAMPALA, Uganda – Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers blew through devastated neighborhoods in Equatorial Guinea’s largest city on Monday, searching for survivors a day after a series of massive explosions erupted in Central African country.
Television footage showed pickups, taxis, pickups and ambulances crossing the port city of Bata carrying people injured in Sunday’s blast. President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said on Sunday the explosions were caused by dynamite stored at a military base near the Atlantic coastline.
According to state media, there were no more beds by Monday. The country’s health ministry said the number of people confirmed dead had risen to 98, with more than 600 in hospital. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.
The blast showed comparisons to the large-scale Lebanese explosion in the port of Beirut in August, which killed 210 people and caused about $ 15 billion in property damage, and the explosion in 2002 at a weapons depot in Lagos, Nigeria, which left more than Killed 1000 people.
The disaster in Equatorial Guinea is an important test for Mr. Obiang, the world’s longest-serving president. The main opposition party on Monday accused him of mishandling the crisis, which he said revealed the poor state of the oil – rich country’s health care system. The small country of 1.5 million people, which houses the third largest reserve oil reserves in Africa, is plagued by years of widespread corruption under Mr. Obiang, who has been in power since 1979, when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States.
The proceeds from oil – and the small population – have prompted the country to rank among the countries with the highest per capita incomes on the continent, although economists and rights groups have long said that the majority of residents are less than $ 2 a day live. Mismanagement and corruption left the country unprepared for last year’s oil price crash, according to Human Rights Watch.
“The sight of the injured arriving in taxis and vans without ambulances is a sufficient indication that Equatorial Guinea is in very bad hands,” said the main opposition party, Convergence for Social Democracy. “There is no government.”
The Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Health said the government had sent a team of psychiatrists to treat people suffering from trauma following the blasts, which began on Sunday afternoon and continued into the night. The government has not addressed the concerns raised by the opposition about providing shelter to the large number of people whose homes have been destroyed.
In 2019, the country reached the International Monetary Fund for a $ 280 million rescue loan, criticizing rights groups for being too rich to earn the loan. Equatorial Guinea, according to the World Bank, has a per capita income of more than $ 10,000, which is higher than countries such as Brazil and China.
Authorities in Switzerland, the USA, South Africa and France have arrested Mr. Obiang investigates corruption and claims that the president and close allies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, in a country where about half a million people live in poverty. In 2019, Swiss authorities seized and auctioned off about 25 supercars, owned by Teodorin Obiang Nguema, President Obiang’s son, defense minister and heir.
Mr. Obiang has come under increasing pressure from international rights groups and lenders to uproot corruption, with little success. His army, consisting of about 1,500 servicemen, was poorly trained and ill-equipped, and Mr. Obiang used foreign troops to strengthen his personal security.
In the past three years, Uganda has maintained about 300 troops in Equatorial Guinea, providing security to Mr. Obiang and the country’s essential installations. The Obiang family also employs Israeli security guards who were walking with the president’s son when he investigated the wreckage on Sunday.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo by [email protected]
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