Ten soldiers were injured in Benin on Monday (May 1) in an "explosion in an ammunition bay" at an officer training school in the south of the country, the army said on Tuesday. The explosion occurred during a "transfer of obsolete equipment", the Beninese army said in a statement, referring to a "pyrotechnic accident". The injured soldiers were hospitalized, while a technical team from the post-conflict demining and clearance training center "was deployed to the site to secure it", the army said.
On Monday afternoon, residents of Toffo (south), a rural town some 90 km from Cotonou, were alerted by sounds of explosions coming from the officers' school. "A thick and huge black smoke rose to the sky and we heard noises, as if we were shooting weapons," said Aimé Dossougouin, a local resident reached by telephone by AFP. “Our only instinct was to run as far as possible. Many thought it was a bomb,” the 28-year-old continued.
"The Chief of the General Staff of the Beninese Armed Forces [...] would like to reassure the local populations that the situation is under control", indicated the army, which invited the inhabitants "not to handle the debris from [the explosion] and to get closer to its personnel in the event of the discovery of fragments of explosives".
Benin, like Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, faces the growing threat of fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group and Al-Qaeda, established in Niger and Burkina Faso and who are now multiplying attacks on its territory. Beninese forces claimed last month to have recorded around 20 incursions since 2021. The Beninese government has indicated that it plans to recruit 5,000 men to help its security forces in particular to protect the northern borders.
