A vehicle in the convoy of US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power killed a boy in Cameroon on Monday.
Power, who spent the first nine years of her life in Ballsbridge in Dublin, was travelling with officials in a chain of white SUVs to showcase US efforts to help protect West Africa’s women and children.
As the convoy barrelled through the village in northern Cameroon a 7-year-old boy darted to the road and was struck dead.
After hitting the boy, one SUV carrying State Department employees pulled to the side of the road. The rest of the motorcade continued on its way.
"Oh, my God," Power said later, after she was informed of the tragedy, according to her spokesman, Kurtis Cooper.
“I want to go see his family,” she added, and later she did.
Power had come to West Africa to help raise awareness and win people over.
It was planned as part of an effort to convince residents who are terrorised by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram but who are also disenchanted by the heavy handed tactics of their governments that their paths lie with the US-backed state, not with the militants.
"The United States stands with you," Power told local reporters Monday at the country's Maroua Airport.
Instead, Power grimly made her way through a day haunted by the boy’s death. As Power’s convoy left the scene of accident Monday, an older man ran to the fallen boy, who lay spread-eagled and bleeding on the road.
Then the convoy disappeared around a curve and continued on to Mokolo and points beyond where Power had appointments with women and children victimised by Boko Haram.
The convoy had been driving at more than 40 mph when the vehicle hit the boy.
One of the ambulances that was part of Power’s motorcade was dispatched to transfer the boy to a nearby hospital.
Officials in Power’s group said later that the convoy continued on its way because the security situation in the area was tense and there had been two Boko Haram attacks nearby just two days before.
Power was not informed of the accident until after she arrived in Mokolo for her first meeting, with a local official.
There was a distinct pall over the rest of the day’s agenda, which was distressing on its own.
In Mokolo, the capital, Hulatu Usman (28) told a harrowing story of running through the bush with her five children with Boko Haram fighters in pursuit.
Ms Usman somehow managed to get all of her children over the border from Nigeria.
At the Minawao camp on Monday afternoon, Power sat on a mat in a dark room with a 15-year-old girl who told her of being forced to choose between death or marrying a Boko Haram fighter.
As the teenager recounted her tale, she held her baby in her lap, along with a drawing she had made of flowers.
All the while, she looked downward, seemingly unable to meet Power’ eyes. “The quadruply sad part is that she thinks she made a choice,” Power, who was visibly upset, told reporters traveling with her.
“That was no choice,” she said.
Power returned to the village where the boy’s family lived, and his time there were no laughing and waving children running on the side of the road.
Instead, hundreds of villagers, surrounded by dozens of black-clad Cameroonian soldiers, stood near the road, staring stone-faced at the motorcade.
The vehicles, engines idling, sat on the road for 30 minutes as Power went in to pay her respects to the boy’s parents.
NYT