Togo slid deeper into civil conflict on Wednesday when at least 22 people were killed and dozens injured in clashes sparked by rival claims of victory in the weekend presidential elections.
Opposition supporters wielded machetes against security forces in the capital, Lomé, as their leader, Emmanuel Akitani-Bob, denounced the poll as fraudulent and declared himself president of the tiny west African country.
Rock-throwing youths damaged some embassies as urban warfare gripped the backstreets of Lomé. More than 1 000 people fled to neighbouring Benin and Ghana as violence spread to several provincial cities.
At least 22 people have died since officials announced on Tuesday that Faure Gnassingbe, the son of former ruler Gnassingbe Eyadema, had won Sunday’s elections.
One senior government official, Katari Foli-Bazi, said eight of the dead were nationals from Niger who had been ”beaten up and burned alive”.
Hospital sources said 95 people had been wounded, mainly by gunshots.
Akitani-Bob was given less than 40% of the vote, but urged his supporters to ”resist until final victory” as he declared himself president from his fortified Lomé villa.
”Togolese, your president is speaking to you, yes, your president, because we did not lose the presidential elections,” he said.
”The struggle will be long, but the struggle of the people is invincible. Our power, your power, the power of the people must be restored.”
Togo has been in political turmoil since the death on February 5 of Eyadema, who ran the country with army backing from his northern stronghold for more than 37 years.
Elections were forced on the authorities by West African regional leaders after his son was rushed into office.
Violence marred the last days of campaigning, the poll itself and the announcement on Tuesday of Gnassingbe as winner. Each side has blamed the other.
Barricades of garbage, burning tyres and felled trees blocked streets in the centre of Lomé on Wednesday, preventing access to the main market, news agencies reported.
The opposition, strengthened during the night, stopped traffic in the Lomé districts of Be and Dekon, as well as in Kodjoviakope and Nykonapoe in the west near the border with Ghana.
The regional organisation Ecowas and Nigeria swiftly denounced the opposition leader’s declaration.
”It cannot stand. It cannot stand because an election has been held and someone has been declared winner,” Nigeria’s Foreign Minister, Olu Adeniji, told AFP news service.
Nigeria, the biggest regional power, pinned its hopes on Togo forming a government of national unity after a tentative agreement between the feuding camps.
The executive secretary of Ecowas, Mohammed Ibn Chambas, also criticised Akitani-Bob’s decision to declare himself president and called on all of Togo’s political parties to form a power-sharing government.
But on Wednesday an official from Akitani-Bob’s bloc, Gilchrist Olympio, said all deals were off.
”Our problem today is that after the massive fraud by this boy called Gnassingbe Faure it’s impossible for us to go into a government with him,” he told the Associated Press.
”The ballot boxes were stuffed,” he said, calling the election ”a complete joke”. – Guardian Unlimited Â