Sierra Leone, home to 7.5 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the world, although its subsoil is full of diamonds.
Corruption corrodes the economy and the country suffered a fierce civil war between 1991 and 2002 that left 120,000 dead. Between 2014 and 2016 it was punished by the Ebola epidemic and later by the fall in world prices of raw materials and finally by the coronavirus.
Accidents of this type are frequent in Africa. Last July in Kenya, 13 people died and several were injured when a “huge fireball” engulfed those trying to recover fuel in a tanker truck that had overturned and was on fire.
In 2009, also in Kenya, more than 100 people were killed when an accident vehicle exploded and flames engulfed people who had come to retrieve leaking fuel from tanks.
More recently, in 2019, 100 people died in Tanzania in very similar circumstances and more than 200 lost their lives in South Sudan in the explosion of another vehicle carrying fuel.
With information from AFP