Angola official: African soccer tournament will continue despite attack on Togo’s team

Angola official: Soccer match on despite attack

CABINDA, Angola — The African Cup of Nations tournament will go on despite an attack on the Togo national soccer team that killed one Angolan and injured eight team members, and Angolan official said.

Gunmen in an area in Angola plagued by separatist violence used machine guns to open fire Friday on a bus carrying Togo’s soccer team to a tournament in this southwest African country.

Angola’s Information Minister Manuel Rabelais said Friday that eight team members and one Angolan were injured. In Togo, the government said the Angolan driver was killed.

Togo’s bus in a convoy from Congo was six miles across the border in Angola when it came under fire. The bus driver died in the 30-minute ambush, according to Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor, who was not hurt.

“We were machine-gunned like dogs,” Togo player Thomas Dossevi, who plays for French club Nantes, told Radio Monte Carlo. “They were armed to the teeth … We spent 20 minutes underneath the seats of the bus.”

Some players said they wanted to pull out of the African Cup of Nations tournament following the violence.

“Despite this, the championship will go on,” Angola’s Sports Minister Goncalves Muandumba said.

Ivory Coast general manager Kaba Kone told The Associated Press on Saturday that his team was “shocked and are living through very hard times” but never considered pulling out of the tournament.

He said the Ivorian players visited their Togolese counterparts late Friday to express their sympahty.

There were no visible security forces guarding the Ivory Coast team’s hotel in Cabinda on Saturday, but Kone said CAF and tournament organizers are stepping up their measures to guarantee safety.

“This event can still be a big party,” he said.

The wounded were taken to a hospital in Cabinda, and Portugal’s state-run Lusa news agency said it received a communication from the region’s main separatist group, FLEC, claiming to have carried out the attack.

Rabelais said Angola’s government was now blaming the separatist group for the attack. He said the attackers came from the Republic of Congo into Angola, and fled back after the attack.

Togo said it was dispatching a delegation to Pointe Noire, where the Togolese team is staying.

Togo Football Federation vice president Gabriel Ameyi said 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.

Midfielder Alaixys Romao felt Togo should not go ahead with the tournament.

“If we can boycott it, let’s do it,” Romao told French TV channel Infosport. “It’s just not on for us to be shot at because of a football match. All I can think about is stopping this competition and going home.”

Dossevi agreed: “We don’t want to play this African Cup of Nations,” he told Infosport. “We’re thinking about our teammates — to be hit by bullets when you’ve come to play football is disgusting.”

The 16-team African championship starts Sunday in Angola, with Togo due to play its opening match on Monday against Ghana in Cabinda.

Human Rights Watch called the apparent rebel attack “shocking.” The New York-based rights group said a 2006 peace agreement between Angola’s government and a faction of the separatist Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda was supposed to end conflict in the area, but “sporadic attacks on government forces and expatriate workers have continued.”

Togo captain Adebayor told the BBC that a lot of players want to leave “because they have seen their death already.”

The African Football Confederation (CAF) condemned the attack against the Togolese delegation and held an emergency meeting. A delegation of Angolan officials and a CAF delegation will go to Cabinda on Saturday, while the Angolan Prime Minister will meet CAF president Issa Hayatou “to take decisions to guarantee the smooth running of the competition.”

FIFA also expressed “utmost sympathy” in a statement and said it expected a report from CAF.