Maroua, April 19 (IANS) A top US diplomat has expressed her "great sorrow" after a vehicle in her convoy struck and killed a young boy during an official visit to Cameroon.
US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power was travelling to a refugee camp in northern Cameroon when the child was struck on Monday, she said hours later in Maroua, capital of the country's Far North Region.
The 8-year-old boy crossed the road without looking near the city of Mokolo, Cameroon's Ministry of Defence said, citing local journalists travelling with the convoy.
The ambassador was not in the car that struck the boy, the ministry said.
The child received immediate care from an ambulance travelling with the group but died shortly afterward, Power said.
The diplomat said she and other US and Cameroonian officials visited the boy's family following the accident to "offer our profound condolences and to express our grief and heartbreak over what the family is going through".
Power was travelling with US Department of Defence and US Agency for International Development officials on a weeklong trip to Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria to underline American support for the campaign against Islamist terror group Boko Haram.
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