CABINDA, Angola: Togo withdrew from the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament and its players reluctantly prepared to leave Angola on Sunday. A separatist leader warned that violence would not end with the deadly ambush on the team bus that killed three and injured eight.
It took a call from Togo’s president to persuade the players to leave the tournament; they said they wanted to stay and compete in honor of their assistant coach, a team spokesman and the Angolan bus driver who died.
The government dispatched the presidential plane to Angola to retrieve the team, but the prime minister said they would move slowly to accommodate the wounded. Togo’s Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo said Angola had not done enough to protect the team after Friday’s attack in Cabinda.
“We fully understand our government’s decision to leave because they didn’t receive enough guarantees for our security,” forward Thomas Dossevi said on Sunday. “We as players, we wanted to stay to honor the memory of our dead people, but both positions are understandable.”
Togo team captain Emmanuel Adebayor, speaking in an interview with France’s RMC radio Sunday, said the team finally decided to “pack our bags and go home” after the Manchester City striker got a call from Togo President Faure Gnassingbe himself urging them to return.
“That’s what made the difference,” Adebayor was quoted as saying in a transcript of his interview on RMC’s Web site.
Togo’s Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo said in Togo’s capital, Lome, that “Angola and the African Football Confederation have not taken adequate security measures to ensure the safety of the Togolese national team.” Dossevi said all team members would go to Lome together before rejoining their respective soccer clubs, some in Europe.
Saturday, most of the top officials of the African Football Confederation, known by its initials in French as CAF, went to Cabinda, where the attack took place and where some of the injured were recovering, and implored Togo to stay.
CAF president Issa Hayatou said he’d received a guarantee from Angola Prime Minister Antonio Paulo Kassoma that security would be beefed up for all teams and at all venues.
