At least 20 dead, 600 wounded in Equatorial Guinea blasts
Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso): A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others on Sunday, authorities said.
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said the explosion at 4 pm local time was due to the negligent handling of dynamite in the military barracks located in the neighbourhood of Mondong Nkuantoma in Bata.
The impact of the explosion caused damage in almost all the houses and buildings in Bata," the president said in a statement, which was in Spanish.
The defence ministry released a statement late Sunday saying that a fire at a weapons depot in the barracks caused the explosion of high-calibre ammunition. It said the provisional toll was 20 dead and 600 injured, adding that the cause of the explosions will be fully investigated.
The country's president said the fire may have been due residents burning the fields surrounding the barracks.
State television showed a huge plume of smoke rising above the explosion site as crowds fled, with many people crying out we don't know what happened, but it is all destroyed.
Images on local media seen by The Associated Press show people screaming and crying running through the streets amid debris and smoke. Roofs of houses were ripped off and wounded people were being carried into a hospital.
Equatorial Guinea, an African country of 1.3 million people located south of Cameroon, was a colony of Spain until it gained its independence in 1968. Bata has roughly 175,000 inhabitants.
Earlier, the Health Ministry had tweeted that 17 were killed and the president's statement mentioned 15 dead.
The Health Ministry made a call for blood donors and volunteer health workers to go to the Regional Hospital de Bata, one of three hospitals treating the wounded.
The ministry said its health workers were treating the injured at the site of the tragedy and in medical facilities, but feared people were still missing under the rubble.
The blasts were a shock for the oil rich Central African nation. Foreign Minister Sime n Oyono Esono Angue met with foreign ambassadors and asked for aid.
It is important for us to ask our brother countries for their assistance in this lamentable situation since we have a health emergency (due to COVID-19) and the tragedy in Bata, he said.
A doctor calling into TVGE, who went by his first name, Florentino, said the situation was a moment of crisis and that the hospitals were overcrowded. He said a sports center set up for COVID-19 patients would be used to receive minor cases.
Radio station, Radio Macuto, said on Twitter that people were being evacuated within four kilometers of the city because the fumes might be harmful.
Following the blast, the Spanish Embassy in Equatorial Guinea recommended on Twitter that Spanish nationals stay in their homes."
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South African police arrest suspect in mass shooting that killed 12, including 3 children
Johannesburg (AP): A 32-year-old suspect has been arrested in connection with a mass shooting which claimed the lives of 12 people including three children at an unlicensed pub earlier this month, South African police said on Monday.
The man is suspected of being one of the three people who opened fire on patrons in a pub at Saulsville township, west of South Africa's capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
At least 13 people were also injured during the attack, whose motive remains unknown.
According to the police, the suspect was arrested on Sunday while traveling to Botlokwa in Limpopo province, more than 340 km from where the mass shooting took place on Dec 6.
An unlicensed firearm believed to have been used during the attack was recovered from the suspect's vehicle.
“The 32-year-old suspect was intercepted by Limpopo Tracking Team on the R101 Road in Westenburg precinct. During the arrest, the team recovered an unlicensed firearm, a hand gun, believed to have been used in the commission of the multiple murders. The firearm will be taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory for ballistic analysis,” police said in statement.
The suspect was arrested on the same day that another mass shooting at a pub took place in the Bekkersdal township, west of Johannesburg, in which nine people were killed and 10 wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire on patrons.
Police have since launched a search for the suspects.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, according to authorities.
According to police, mass shootings at unlicensed bars are becoming a serious problem. Police shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
