On the occasion of Independence Day, the Togolese President spoke Thursday, April 27th with local journalists. Faure Gnassingbé notably returned to the armed attacks suffered by northern Togo for 18 months. A speech on a subject about which the Togolese authorities had remained discreet.
Officials rarely discuss it, but the Savanes region repeatedly suffers attacks. Several times, political actors and civil society organizations have stepped up to demand transparency in the management of armed incursions on the borders in the northeast of the country.
Since the first incursions in November 2021 of armed bands against the Togolese borders, there has been very little communication from the general staff of the armies, even less from the government. For once, President Faure Gnassingbé himself mentions it, “if we don’t talk about it, it’s not because we haven’t been successful,” he said Thursday evening on national television during an interview with journalists on the occasion of the 63rd anniversary of the country’s accession to national sovereignty.
Today, says Faure Gnassingbé, what is happening to us is a form of aggression. These attacks are a form of warfare. A hundred civilians and 40 soldiers have been killed in the region over the past year and a half. The fight will be long, warns President Gnassingbé, but in the end, he concludes, there will be victory.