KAMPALA, Uganda: Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers moved Monday through devastated neighborhoods in Equatorial Guinea’s largest city, searching for survivors a day after a series of massive explosions erupted in the Central African nation.
Television footage showed vans, taxis, vans and ambulances crossing the port city of Bata, which was transporting people injured in Sunday’s blasts. The blasts were caused by improperly stored dynamite, stored at a military base near the Atlantic coast, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said on Sunday.
On Monday, the clinics had run out of beds, according to state media. The country’s Ministry of Health said the number of people confirmed dead had risen to 98, with more than 600 hospitalized. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.
The blast has been compared to Lebanon’s massive explosion in the port of Beirut in August, which killed 210 people and caused about $ 15 billion in property damage and the 2002 explosion at a weapons dump. in Lagos, Nigeria, which killed more than 1,000 people.
The Equatorial Guinea disaster is an important test for Mr. Obiang, the longest-serving president in the world. On Monday, the main opposition party accused him of abusing the crisis, which he said revealed the poor 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 by Obiang, who has held power since 1979, when Jimmy Carter was president. of the United States.
Oil revenues — and their small populations — have pushed the nation to the top-income countries on the continent, although economists and defense groups have long argued. time that most residents live on less than $ 2 a day. Mismanagement and corruption left the country unprepared for last year’s falling oil price, according to Human Rights Watch.
“Seeing 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, Convergence for Social Democracy. “There is no government.”
Equatorial Guinea’s health ministry said the government had sent a team of psychiatrists to treat people suffering from trauma after the blasts, which began Sunday afternoon and continued into the wee hours of the night. The government did not address the concerns raised by the opposition about providing shelter to the large number of people who destroyed the houses.
In 2019, the country turned to the International Monetary Fund for a $ 280 million bailout loan, and criticized advocacy groups that the country is too rich to deserve the loan. According to the World Bank, Equatorial Guinea has a per capita income of more than $ 10,000, higher than countries such as Brazil and China.
Authorities in Switzerland, the United States, South Africa and France have investigated Mr. Obiang on corruption, alleging that the president and close allies have siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, in a country where there are about half a million people in poverty. In 2019, Swiss authorities hijacked and auctioned about 25 super cars, owned by Teodorin Obiang Nguema, son of President Obiang, defense minister and apparent heir.
Obiang has increasingly faced pressure from international rights groups and lenders to crack down on corruption, with little success. His army, made up of about 1,500 members of the service, is poorly trained and ill-equipped, and Mr. Obiang has resorted to foreign troops to bolster his personal security.
Over 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 inspected the remains on Sunday.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo to [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8