Lome - At least 22 people have been killed, including eight Niger nationals, and more than 100 people hurt in clashes since ruling party candidate Faure Gnassingbe was declared the winner of Togo's disputed presidential poll, Togolese officials said on Wednesday.

Angry opposition supporters battled riot police for the second day running on Wednesday in the capital of the tiny west African country. Official and hospital sources said at least 22 people had been killed and more than 100 hurt.

In France, Kofi Yamgnane, a former French junior minister for integration who also has Togolese nationality, spoke of "100 people killed" in the Lome clashes between pro-opposition youths and security forces.

"This is an estimate based on information I am receiving from Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso since telephone lines in Togo have been cut," Yamgnane added.

In Lome, Interior Minister Katari Foli-Bazi, citing accounts from local residents, said on Wednesday that the charred bodies of eight Nigerois had been found after they were severely beaten by rioters.

The eight were killed in the port area in Lome's eastern Adakpame district, he added.

Witnesses said the Nigerois were killed because their country, which currently assumes the presidency of the west African regional grouping Ecowas, was seen as having sided with Faure Gnassingbe, the son of late president Gnassinbe Eyadema.

Ecowas monitors said on Wednesday they had endorsed the conduct of Togo's bitterly disputed presidential poll, despite noting some failures of organisation.

Togo's radical opposition has accused Faure Gnassingbe of rigging the vote and refused to recognise his apparent victory. The regional poll observers, however, disagreed.

"The observers noted that the anomalies and inadequacies as well as the reported incidents... are not of a nature that could cast doubt to good conduct and credibility of the presidential poll," an Ecowas report said.

Yamgnane meanwhile said some French nationals had been attacked by the Lome demonstrators and had sought refuge in the German embassy in Lome.

"This shows that France is disconnected with reality," he noted, criticising Paris's view that the Togolese elections "had generally gone well."

Gnassingbe, whose comfortable victory was announced on Tuesday by the independent electoral commission but has yet to be confirmed by the constitutional court, has pleaded for calm in the west African country and called for a national unity government.

Opposition candidate Emmanuel Akitani Bob of the UFC told journalists he was the real head of state, promising a "long struggle" and calling on his supporters to "stay mobilised".

Togo has been in political turmoil since the February 5 death of Gnassingbe Eyadema, Faure Gnassingbe's father, who ran the country with the Togolese People's Rally (RPT) and army commanders from his northern stronghold for more than 37 years. - Sapa-AFP

Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-04-28 06:19:20