Gunman Opens Fire on Togo Soccer Team Bus, One Killed, Nine Injured
One person was killed and nine others wounded when a gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Togo’s national football team to the Africa Cup of Nations. The killed person was driver of the bus.
In Togo, the government put the total number of injured at nine, and said that the slain driver was Angolan. A delegation has been sent to Pointe Noire in Congo, where the Togolese team is now holed up.
Following attack, Togo’s footballers, two of them injured, said that they now wanted to withdraw from the 16-nation tournament. However, a member of the Angola organizing committee said that it would go ahead as per plan, said a Press Association report.
The report said that the gunman opened the fire on bus when it was travelling in a convoy from Congo and was six miles across the border in Angola.
According to Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor and his government, the Angolan bus driver died in the 30-minute ambush.
“We were machine-gunned like dogs. They were armed to the teeth. We spent 20 minutes underneath the seats of the bus,” Nantes striker Thomas Dossevi told Radio Monte Carlo.
In France, Dossevi told Infosport television: “We were surrounded by police buses. Everything looked fine and we came under heavy fire. Everyone scrambled under the seats trying to protect themselves. It lasted at least a quarter of an hour with the police responding.”
The injured people were rushed to a hospital in Cabinda.
Portugal’s state-run Lusa news agency said that it had received a communication from the region’s main separatist group, FLEC, which claimed to have carried out the attack.
Togo Football Federation vice president Gabriel Ameyi said that the team should have flown to Angola instead of traveling by road. He said defender Serge Akakpo and backup goalkeeper Obilale Kossi were among those hurt.
