Human Rights Watch on Wednesday asserted that blasts that levelled a military camp and the surrounding populated area in Equatorial Guinea at the weekend claimed ‘far more’ lives than the official death toll of 105, urging an independent investigation into the disaster.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has ruled the oil-rich country with an iron fist for 42 years, blamed the military for “negligence” in stocking ammunition so close to residential areas.
On Tuesday, state television reported 105 people were killed and 615 were injured by the conflagration at the camp of Nkoa Ntoma, outside the economic hub Bata, home to 800,000 of the country’s 1.4 million people.
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But HRW, citing local rights group EG Justice, said that ‘based on the number of bodies pulled from the rubble, the actual number of victims is much higher.’
It also urged donors and aid groups to send support directly to victims and their families rather than through the government, ‘given high levels of corruption in Equatorial Guinea’.
The four cataclysmic explosions flattened the camp, which houses special forces, gendarmes and their families, as well as nearby residential areas on Sunday afternoon.
By the evening, Obiang announced a probe into the disaster, stating that the blasts were set off by a local farmer practising slash-and-burn agriculture near stores of explosives and munitions.
The defence ministry said the blasts were caused by heavy-calibre munitions and emitted ‘shock waves which totally destroyed numerous homes nearby’.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK