Israel announced on Tuesday that it was sending a medical team to Equatorial Guinea after deadly explosions at a military camp in the African country.
The joint delegation from the Ministry of Health and Israel’s Defense Forces will include intensive care physicians, pediatricians and other medical specialists, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health.
The ministry said the National Security Council had requested that the delegation be sent to Equatorial Guinea.
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The Israeli announcement came after Spain, the former colonial power of Equatorial Guinea, said a relief plane would leave Madrid on Wednesday with medicine and medical equipment. The United States embassy also said that Washington is sending experts to help with damage assessment and reconstruction.
The death toll from the blasts rose to 105 on Tuesday with the discovery of seven more corpses.
A total of 615 people were injured in Sunday’s accidental explosions in the Nkoa Ntoma camp in the country’s economic center, Bata, which devastated buildings in the complex and houses in neighboring neighborhoods.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who ruled the oil-rich country with an iron fist for 42 years, once again blamed the military for “negligence” in stockpiling ammunition so close to residential areas.
This TVGE image from video shows people carrying a victim after an explosion site in a military barracks in Bata, Equatorial Guinea, March 7, 2021. (TVGE via AP)
He had previously spoken about burning stubble by local farmers, triggering the tragedy.
State television channel TVGE said seven more bodies were found on Tuesday, buried under the rubble.
On Monday, the newspaper said more than 60 survivors were found trapped under the rubble, including two children aged three and four.
TVGE showed images similar to a war zone, with rescuers and civilians struggling to remove bodies from smoking ruins.
Obiang said on Tuesday that officials in charge of the camp, which houses the special forces and police and their families, “have been careless”.
Dynamite is usually “stored away from people and stored
President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo at the Russia-Africa summit at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, October 24, 2019. (Valery Sharifulin, TASS News Agency Pool Photo via AP)
underground, ”he said.
The Defense Ministry said the explosions caused by high-caliber ammunition caused “shock waves that completely destroyed several nearby houses”.
The only Spanish-speaking country in Sub-Saharan Africa, Equatorial Guinea is one of the most closed nations on the continent.
Bata is home to 800,000 of the country’s 1.4 million inhabitants, most of whom live in poverty, despite the country’s oil and gas wealth.
The capital is Malabo, on the island of Bioko.
Its ruler, Obiang, is the longest serving president in the world and is often accused of abuse by human rights groups.
In addition to the difficulty in understanding the full scale of the tragedy, air and sea connections were closed for weeks due to coronavirus restrictions.
Only military and government aircraft have made the journey since the explosions.
