According to state television, at least four powerful explosions struck a military camp in Equatorial Guinea on Sunday, causing casualties.
The TVGE channel showed wrecked and burning houses, with people being rescued from the debris, including children, and the wounded lying on a hospital floor.
It showed photographs of a thick column of black smoke emanating from the Nkoa Ntoma military camp in Bata’s economic capital.
A local resident, Teodoro Nguema, said that “we hear the explosion and we see the smoke, but we don’t know what’s going on.”
The cause of the explosions is unknown, but early reports indicated they may have originated in the camp’s armory, according to a television journalist.
According to the writer, the camp houses elements of the army’s special forces as well as the paramilitary gendarmerie.
Bata is the largest city in the oil-and-gas-rich country, home to about 800,000 of the country’s 1.4 million people, the majority of whom are poor.
Malabo, the country’s capital, is located on Bioko, one of the country’s islands off the west African coast.
Educator, writer and legal researcher at Alafarika for Studies and Consultancy.