A Togolese army patrol in the north of the country, February 2020. PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP
At least eight Togolese soldiers were killed and thirteen wounded in a “terrorist” attack in northern Togo on the night of Tuesday May 10-Wednesday May 11, a first in the country so far spared by violence, it said the government with.
“Around 3 a.m., a Kondjouaré operation outpost in the village of Kpinkankandi was the subject of a violent terrorist attack carried out by a group of heavily armed people who have not yet been identified. Unfortunately, this attack left eight dead and thirteen wounded on the part of the defense and security forces,” the government said in a press release read on state television.
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This is the first deadly “terrorist” attack in Togo, where the army is stationed in the north to counter the threat of excess violence from jihadist groups from neighboring Burkina Faso. Togo only registered one attack in November 2021. The government said it “strongly condemns this cowardly and barbaric attack” and said it would do everything it could to “find and eliminate these armed terrorist groups.”
The soldiers were attacked by about 60 men on motorcycles, according to a senior military official who asked not to be identified. “The exchange of fire lasted more than two hours. And it was one of the reinforcement teams that jumped on an improvised explosive device,” he told AFP.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday the attack “shows that the terrorist threat is spreading to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea”. “Efforts must be redoubled to stop it before it’s too late,” Mr Borrell warned.
“Jihadist Territorial Growth”
In November 2021, gunmen launched an attack on security forces in the village of Sanloaga (far north) without incurring any casualties. A recent spate of border raids in countries south of the Sahel has confirmed fears that jihadist groups in the region are trying to push towards the coast.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are struggling with jihadist uprisings, and neighboring countries such as Ghana, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire fear flooding at their borders. In February, Benin already paid the price after nine people, including a Frenchman, were killed in three homemade bombings in the north, the deadliest in the country.
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Jihadist groups have bases in Burkina Faso and Mali to “expand in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and, to a lesser extent, Togo, Ghana, Senegal and Guinea,” says researcher Mathieu Pellerin, a specialist in political and security dynamics in the Sahel.
“This territorial outgrowth of jihadists will gradually lead to increasingly endogenous jihadist centers in these states, made up of local recruits and feeding on local fragility,” he adds in a report published in February by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
In view of the growing threat, the coastal states are organizing themselves, in particular with the Accra Initiative launched in 2017 by Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, to strengthen their security cooperation.
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