Togo soccer team leaves Angola in wake of ambush

CABINDA, Angola (AP) — Togo withdrew from a continentwide soccer tournament and its players reluctantly left Angola on Sunday, two days after a deadly ambush on the team bus killed three and injured eight. A separatist leader warned, however, that violence would not likely end.

It took a call from Togo’s president to persuade the players to leave the African Cup of Nations; they said they wanted to stay and compete in honor of the assistant coach, team spokesman and Angolan bus driver who died in Friday’s attack.

The government dispatched the presidential plane, while Togo’s Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo said Angola had not done enough to protect the team after the attack in Cabinda — the oil-rich region in northern Angola which has seen occasional separatist violence.

“We fully understand our government’s decision to leave because they didn’t receive enough guarantees for our security,” forward Thomas Dossevi told The Associated Press. “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 had decided finally 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.

Boarding the plane, Adebayor told journalists: “We have to mourn our dead. We go back home to do this.”

Togo Sports Minister Christophe Padumhokou Tchao, who was accompanying the team home, told the AP three days of mourning had been declared in his homeland.

“We can’t be in a period of mourning and at the same time be in the festival” of sport, he said. He added Togo had asked organizers to postpone the tournament.

The airport scene was chaotic, with dozens of police struggling against a crowd of journalists. Two planes carrying the players and officials then sat on the tarmac for several hours before taking off.

The tournament began earlier Sunday with an opening ceremony in a Chinese-built stadium in the capital, Luanda. Several African heads of state attended, including President Rupiah Banda of Zambia and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma.