Guinea’s Head of State, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, visited the country’s two main hospitals in the capital, Conakry, on December 25 to meet with those injured in the fire at the nation’s main fuel depot on the night of December 17-18.
Accompanied by some members of his government, President Doumbouya expressed heartfelt words to each individual. He first visited the explosion site, emotionally witnessing the extent of the damage before shaking hands with the injured still undergoing treatment at the Donka and Ignace-Deen hospitals in Conakry.
An emotionally moved teenager offered prayers, saying, “I thank Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya; may God bless Guinea and the Guineans.” Dr. Karamba Kaba, a surgeon at Donka Hospital, expressed optimism about a speedy recovery for his patients, stating, “We believe that, in the coming days, most of them will return home.”
Nearly a hundred injured individuals were urgently admitted to Ignace-Deen Hospital the day after the incident, with some later transferred to other hospitals. Professor Mamadou Dadhi Baldé, the director of Ignace-Deen University Hospital, provided an update:
“In total, we have received 88 people since the beginning of the event. We transferred 38 of them to Donka Hospital, the Sino-Guinean Hospital, and the communal medical center of Ratoma. We released 30 individuals after initial care. All patients at Ignace-Deen Hospital are stable. Three underwent trauma surgery, and all others are doing well.”
It is important to recall that the fire resulting from the explosion at the country’s main oil terminal on the Kaloum Peninsula in the port of Conakry on the night of December 17-18 has claimed at least 23 lives, with several missing and over 200 injured.