At least 20 dead in Togo urban warfare after poll

LOME - Security forces in Togo fought pitched battles with machete-wielding youths in violence which has killed at least 20 people and caused over 1,000 to flee since the late ruler's son won a disputed poll.

As police and protesters clashed in dirt backstreets of the seaside capital Lome, the losing opposition candidate declared himself president and warned his supporters they might have to sacrifice their lives.

Togo's interim president Abass Bonfoh described the "self-proclamation" as fanciful and ordered security forces to detain anyone standing in the way of democracy.

Urban warfare erupted in Lome minutes after officials said on Tuesday that Faure Gnassingbe, son of Gnassingbe Eyadema who ruled the former French colony for nearly four decades until he died in February, had won Sunday's presidential election.

"At the moment we've counted nine dead, eight nationals of Niger who were beaten up and burned alive ... and one policeman who was killed with machete blows," acting Interior Minister Katari Foli-Bazi told reporters after touring the capital.

Some 1,200 people have fled to neighbouring Benin and Ghana since violence broke out in several towns following the poll results, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said.

"We are hoping that this is not the first sign of a major influx, that calm will be restored and people will return," the UNHCR Africa bureau director, David Lambo, said in a statement.

Relative calm returned late in the day to Lome's main opposition suburb of Be, where security forces had earlier fired rubber bullets at youths dug in behind blazing barricades.

Two doctors at Lome's main hospital said they had heard of about 50 killed, while reports from other staff, aid workers and residents added up to at least 10 dead. Opposition leaders said 12 of their supporters had been killed. More than 100 people were wounded, many by gunfire, hospital and aid workers said.

"Armed men and militias are going into courtyards and shooting at people," one doctor, who did not want to be named, said, adding some of the casualties had been shot in the back.

Residents in the town of Aneho, some 45km east of Lome, said people started fleeing to Benin after youths attacked local government buildings and set cars on fire. One witness said several people were killed.

Scores of people - some on foot with their belongings on their heads and others crammed into cars - could be seen heading along the main road from Lome to Benin.

France's foreign ministry said some of its nationals and other foreigners had suffered attacks and vandalism in Lome.

Togo spun into chaos when Eyadema died after 38 years in power and army leaders named Gnassingbe to replace him, saying they feared a dangerous political vacuum. He eventually stepped down under fierce international pressure and called elections.

Sunday's poll was effectively a referendum on nearly four decades of repressive rule by Eyadema, who led a 1963 coup, declared himself president four years later, and eventually became Africa's longest-serving leader.

The main opposition candidate, Emmanuel Akitani-Bob won 38.19 per cent of the vote against Gnassingbe's 60.22 per cent.

"We must fight with our lives if necessary ... to force the one who believes he has a divine right over our people to listen to reason," Akitani-Bob said after claiming the presidency.

Acting leader Bonfoh said only the electoral commission and constitutional court could proclaim the vote results. "Those who violate the laws of the republic will be prosecuted and will be subjected to the rigours of the law," he said on state radio.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said democratic leaders must abide by the laws of the land.

Gnassingbe, a business-minded 39-year-old, has offered to form a unity government but opposition leaders have rejected that, saying they cannot work with a fraudulent president.

- REUTERS