KAMPALA, Uganda – Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers ventured into the devastated neighborhoods of Equatorial Guinea’s largest city on Monday, looking for survivors a day after a series of massive explosions erupted in the Central African nation.
Television recordings showed trucks, taxis, vans and ambulances passing through the port city of Bata, transporting people injured in Sunday’s blasts. The blasts were triggered by improperly stored dynamite, kept in a military base near the Atlantic coast, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said on Sunday.
Until Monday, the clinics were left without beds, according to the state press. The country’s Ministry of Health said the number of confirmed dead had risen to 98, with more than 600 hospitalized. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.
The blast compared Lebanon’s massive blast at the port of Beirut in August, which left 210 dead and caused about $ 15 billion in property damage, as well as the 2002 blast at a weapons depot in Lagos, Nigeria, which killed over 1,000 people
The disaster in Equatorial Guinea is a major test for Mr. Obiang, the world’s longest-serving president. On Monday, the main opposition party accused him of mismanaging the crisis, which he said revealed the precarious state of the country’s oil-rich health system. The small country of 1.5 million people, home to Africa’s third largest oil reserves, has been plagued by years of widespread corruption under Mr Obiang, who has been in power since 1979, when Jimmy Carter was president. US.
Oil revenues – and its small population – have propelled the nation to the top-income countries on the continent, although economists and rights groups have long said that most people live on less than 2 per cent. dollars a day. Improper management and corruption have left the country unprepared for the collapse of last year’s oil price, according to Human Rights Watch.
“The sight of the wounded arriving in taxis and vans, without ambulances, is a sufficient indicator that Equatorial Guinea is in very bad hands,” said the main opposition party, the Convergence for Social Democracy. “There is no government.”
The Equatorial Guinea’s health ministry said the government had sent a team of psychiatrists to treat people suffering from blasts from the blasts, which began on Sunday afternoon and continued late at night. The government has not addressed the opposition’s high concerns about providing shelter for the large number of people whose homes have been destroyed.
In 2019, the country contacted the International Monetary Fund for a $ 280 million rescue loan, drawing criticism from rights groups that the country is too rich to be eligible for the loan. Equatorial Guinea has a per capita income of more than $ 10,000, which is higher than countries such as Brazil and China, according to the World Bank.
Authorities in Switzerland, the United States, South Africa and France investigated Mr. Obiang for corruption, claiming that the president and close allies have siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from public funds in a country where about half a million people remain in poverty. In 2019, the Swiss authorities confiscated and auctioned about 25 supercars, owned by Teodorin Obiang Nguema, the son of President Obiang, defense minister and apparent heir.
Mr Obiang has increasingly faced pressure from international rights groups and creditors to eradicate corruption with little success. His army, which has about 1,500 members of the service, is poorly trained and poorly equipped, and Mr Obiang has called on foreign troops to bolster his personal security.
For the past three years, Uganda has maintained about 300 troops in Equatorial Guinea, providing security to Mr Obiang and the country’s vital facilities. The Obiang family also has Israeli security guards, who walked with the president’s son while he searched the remains on Sunday.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8