Equatorial Guinea Blasts Kill Dozens

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – At least 20 people were killed and more than 500 injured when explosions at a military base rocked Equatorial Guinea’s largest city, authorities said.

The four massive blasts attributed to mishandled explosives in the port city of Bata, a former capital, sent giant plumes of smoke into the air and destroyed dozens of buildings.

Images broadcast on state-run television showed injured residents fleeing. Some seemed to be carrying bodies.

Others fled through the streets, some with suitcases and children in hand underneath a darkened sky, witnesses said.

Autocratic President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said fires on farms next to military barracks had detonated dynamite and other munitions stored there. He blamed the “negligence and carelessness” of the unit in charge of the explosives for the disaster.

However, the blasts added to tensions and questions over his rule in one of Africa’s poorest nations. Obiang has been in power since a coup in 1979 and is known for his repressive rule, a vast network of corruption, and lavish vanity projects.

As the world’s ­longest-serving president, he secured a sixth term in 2016, claiming 99 percent of the vote.

Following Sunday’s disaster, the country’s ministry of health and social welfare declared a health emergency and said many were still missing under the rubble.

Blasts at arms depots have been seen in central Africa on several occasions. Nine years ago, some 250 people were killed in a similar series of explosions on Brazzaville’s outskirts, the Congo Republic’s capital.

Critics note that Equatorial Guinea and the Congo Republic are both ruled by leaders who spent decades in power and use their militaries’ against their people to suppress dissent.

Discontent is also believed to be widespread in Equatorial Guinea, a small and impoverished country wedged between Gabon and Cameroon on Africa’s Atlantic coast.

While the nation is rich in oil and timber, most of its up to a million and a half citizens are poor. By some measures, the rate of extreme poverty is 40 percent, according to several estimates.

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