In the north of the country, an advanced post of the Togolese army underwent an assault of around sixty men on motorbikes.
Le Monde with AFP
At least eight Togolese soldiers were killed and thirteen injured on the night of Tuesday, May 11 to Wednesday, May 11 during a “terrorist” attack in northern Togo, a first in the country hitherto spared by the violence, the government announced.
“At around 3 hours, an advanced position of the Kondjouaré operation system, located in the locality of Kinkankandi, has been the subject of a violent terrorist attack by a group of heavily armed individuals not yet Identified. This attack unfortunately left eight dead and thirteen injured on the side of the defense and security forces, “said the government in a statement read on state television.
This is the first deadly “terrorist” attack in Togo, where the army is deployed in the North to face the threat of an overflow of the violence of the jihadist groups present in neighboring Burkina Faso. Togo had only recorded one attack in November 2021. The government said “firmly condemn this cowardly and barbaric attack”, specifying everything to “search and put these terrorist armed groups”.
According to a senior military official who requested anonymity, the soldiers were attacked by sixty men on a motorcycle. “The exchanges of fire lasted more than two hours. And it is one of the teams in reinforcement that jumped on an improvised explosive device,” he told AFP.
“Djihadist territorial outgrowth”
In November 2021, armed men had launched an attack on the security forces in the village of Sanloaga (Far North), without making a victim. A recent series of border raids in the countries south of the Sahel has confirmed fears that jihadist groups of the region seek to progress towards the coast.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are struggling with jihadist insurrections and neighboring states such as Ghana, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire are worried about overflows at their borders. In February, Benin already paid the price after the death in the north of nine people, including one French, in three attacks on the artisanal bomb, the deadliest in the country.
The jihadist groups constitute rear bases in Burkina Faso and Mali to “extend to Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, and to a lesser extent in Togo, Ghana, Senegal and Guinea”, estimates the Researcher Mathieu Pellerin, specialist in political and security dynamics in the Sahel.
“This jihadist territorial outgrowth will gradually give birth to jihadist households increasingly endogenous in these states, composed of local recruits and which feed on the fragility” on the spot, he adds, in a report published in February by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
Faced with the growing threat, the coastal states are organized, in particular with the initiative of Accra launched in 2017 by Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, to strengthen their security cooperation.