A Brief History
On March 7, 2021, the military of Equatorial Guinea experienced one of those “oops moments” leading to disaster when a military base near the port city of Bata suffered a series of massive explosions of stored munitions that devastated the city and left over 100 people dead.
Digging Deeper
Authorities blamed local farmers and their “slash and burn” farming techniques for starting fires that triggered the explosions, although outside organizations claimed such farming fires had not actually been set anywhere near the military camp.
President Obiang did admit that the storage of munitions had been “negligent,” and 243 buildings or other structures were destroyed or heavily damaged. In addition to the deaths, over 600 people were injured.
Many military munitions were scattered by the blasts, leading to local residents proudly posing for photographs with the deadly ammo and posting the pictures on social media!
Question for students (and subscribers): Have you ever been to Africa? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Molefe, Barric. Equatorial Guinea History of Politics, and Supremacy, “untold History: Political Manipulation and Corruption. Blurb, 2023.
Scafidi, Oscar. Equatorial Guinea. Bradt Travel Guides, 2015.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by IDF Spokesperson’s Unit of the IDF Aid Mission to Equatorial Guinea in 2021, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
