A vehicle in a motorcade transporting Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, in a violence-prone area of northern Cameroon struck and killed a young boy Monday as it sped down a two-lane roadway.
The incident involving Power’s motorcade underscored the perils of dignitary transportation as their convoys move at high speed, even in densely populated areas. Numerous deaths have resulted over the years, both of police officers who are part of a motorcade and of civilians drawn to the spectacle.
In Monday’s incident, Power was in northern Cameroon visiting refugee camps and talking with local officials about the threat posed in the region by Boko Haram, which the Global Terrorism Index has named as the world’s deadliest terrorism group. While en route to a refugee camp, her motorcade passed near the small city of Maroua.
According to news reports from Cameroon, villagers lined the roadside to watch the motorcade speed past. A seven-year-old boy unexpectedly dashed into the road, and the sixth car in the motorcade, an armored Jeep, had no time to swerve away, the reports said. The driver was a Cameroonian, but it could not immediately be determined if he was employed by the US Embassy, or was part of a local police guard escorting Power, several aides and journalists.
The Associated Press reported that just before the child was struck, a man was observed running to the street with his arms raised high in an attempt to stop the child. The driver stopped the car after hitting the boy, but US security forces ordered him to leave because the area was unsecure. The boy was treated by medics in an ambulance accompanying the convoy and transported to a local hospital.
Power returned to the scene later in the day to meet with the boy’s family and extend her condolences in person, according to the US mission to the UN.