Togo: Over 30 dead in “terrorist attacks” in 2023

Rarely, the Togolese government took stock of the "terrorist" attacks in the country, in a press release read Monday evening on state television.

In 2023, Togo reported “31 deaths, 29 injured and 3 missing” in “terrorist” incidents, Yawa Kouigan, Minister of Communication and government spokesperson, told TVT.

“Our country experienced an ambush attack, 11 clashes with armed terrorist groups, 9 explosions of improvised explosive devices and 20 discoveries and neutralization of improvised explosive devices,” she said.

According to the minister, "the first terrorist attack" took place in Sanloaga in the Kpendjal prefecture in November 2021, and "was followed by several incursions and incidents in the savannah region", in the north of the country, near the border with Burkina Faso.

The northern regions of Benin, Togo and Ghana are suffering attacks and incursions from jihadist groups who thrive in the Sahel and seek to move south.

Until now, the Togolese government communicated sparsely on the subject.

In April, the President of Togo, Faure Gnassingbé, indicated that the jihadists had killed around 140 people, including some 100 civilians, since their first attacks at the end of 2021 in this country.

The security issue will be at the heart of the organization of the next legislative and regional elections which should be held "at the latest at the end of the first quarter of 2024", as Yawa Kouigan announced in the same press release.

The government assured that it would “take into account the persistence of security challenges to guarantee everyone – candidates, voters and citizens – the necessary security throughout the national territory”.

Faure Gnassingbé has been in power since 2005 after succeeding his father, General Eyadéma Gnassingbé who ruled the country with an iron fist for 38 years.