Children suffering most in post-poll exodus

Since Alex’s parents fled to Benin in fear of persecution after Togo’s controversial presidential election last month, the 14-year-old boy has come to the beach every morning to collect stones that he sells to construction workers in order to feed himself. “My parents took part in demonstrations after the elections, and they became frightened and left,” the teenager said. Like thousands of other opposition supporters, Alex’s parents took to the streets in outrage after the 24 April poll legitimised a disputed father-to-son transition. Faure Gnassingbe, the son of Gnassingbe Eyadema who ruled Togo for 38 years until his death last February, was declared winner of the poll the opposition says was rigged. Opposition protests were brutally put down by the security forces in the days immediately following the election results. And residents in both Aneho and the capital Lome say the crackdown against opponents has continued ever since, often quietly in the dead of night. Alex’s parents decided to flee the 5 km from the eastern city of Aneho to the border with Benin. His 12-year-old brother went with them, but Alex opted to stay behind and finish the school year. “I’m staying with my uncle,” he told IRIN on the beach. “But because he’s unemployed I’ve been coming down here regularly to collect stones so that I can eat.” Alex is not his real name, but the teenager, like many other frightened residents of Aneho, is reluctant to be identified. Every day he comes down to the beach at 6 a.m. to start work. After four hours of scooping his specially-made net through crashing waves he collects a mound of stones that he can sell on to local builders for 1,500 CFA, about US $3. “It’s tiring,” Alex said, while resting with three school friends in the shade of seafront palm trees. Two of them, like Alex, have had to fend for themselves since their parents ran off to Benin. The other is an orphan.

Map of Togo

Aneho hard hit by election violence In Aneho, a coastal town 45 km east of Lome, opposition activists vented their frustration after the election by attacking local government buildings and the homes of ruling party supporters. According to diplomats, they even managed to commandeer a few guns. But the government response was swift. Local residents said a military helicopter fired from the air as truckloads of troops and police descended on the town, firing their guns into the air and sometimes directly at the demonstrators. Some of the protesters were killed, although no one is sure of the number, residents explained. The government has opened a probe into post-poll violence and human rights groups are conducting their own investigations into what happened. Some residents of Aneho said they were convinced that the government used mercenaries from elsewhere in Africa to carry out the most violent attacks. “Some of the soldiers, the ones that beat my husband very badly, they were from Congo,” said one opposition supporter. “They were not from here: they did not understand Minna [a main local language]; they spoke Lingala [a popular language in central Africa] and they were very dark-skinned.” It was impossible to verify such reports, although diplomats and aid workers said that in such times of extreme tension the government may well have called in the assistance of an outside force. Almost half of the refugees are children In Benin, which is sheltering close to 20,000 refugees, the UN children’s agency UNICEF says there are close to 200 unaccompanied and separated children aged between 9 and 17 who need urgent support and assistance. “Some declared they saw their parents killed,” UNICEF said in a statement, adding that children accounted for nearly half of the total number of refugees. For Alex and his friends who stayed in Togo, life is no easier. Gathering stones in the sea is tiring work and they fear the water is polluted. On the horizon is a jetty where phosphates from a nearby mine are loaded onto ships and down current from the jetty, where Alex and his friends work, the water is lime green. “The stuff in the sea makes our eyes sore,” complains one of Alex’s friends. “And if the fish come into this bit, they die! ” says another, pointing to a more deeply-coloured slick along the shoreline. "They float to the surface!” The most important thing for all these boys is to finish the school year, which is only a few weeks away. After that, perhaps they’ll join their parents in Benin. Some youngsters who initially fled have come back to sit their exams. But according to Edoh, a small middle-aged man who also lives in Aneho, they were foolhardy. “My younger brother came back, but I told him to go right back to Benin! They made some arrests at the college - I don’t know how many. A group of lads were taken away by the military last week and haven’t been seen since,” he said.

Alex and his friends gather stones in the sea

10,000 people internally displaced According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, there are over 33,000 Togolese refugees in Benin and Ghana, and though the flow into Ghana has stopped, more frightened young men are still arriving in Benin. Most of those remaining in Aneho are women, children and the elderly. At the Roman Catholic cathedral last Sunday, there were only 200 people in the congregation compared with a usual packed house of 800, a priest told IRIN. Those who did attend were mostly women, he noted. But not all those who have fled their homes have left Togo. UN agencies working with international and local NGO partners estimate that 10,000 people have been displaced within Togo's borders since the election unleashed a storm of violence. Some 1,150 UNICEF food parcels and other emergency items are being distributed through local NGOs and the government in the southern towns of Aneho, Atakpame, Kpalime and Lome. UNICEF estimates this aid will benefit 5,800 people, working on the basis that each family has an average of five members. “We don’t know what proportion of the displaced are women and children, though they seem to be the majority,” said Aicha Flambert, the head of UNICEF in Togo. Collecting reliable information is proving problematic. Local NGOs say that displaced people are often reluctant to inform the village chief of their presence, never mind the local government authorities, for fear of reprisals. “The biggest problem we have here is information, but people are in need so we have decided to begin distributions regardless,” said Flambert.