Refugees continue to flow into Benin, fleeing persecution

Over 100 Togolese refugees are continuing to cross the border each day into Benin, said the UN refugee agency UNHCR on Wednesday, despite previous reports that the situation in Togo appeared to be returning to calm. Refugees began flooding out of Togo following a violently disputed presidential election on 24 April that brought to power Faure Gnassingbe - son of the late authoritarian president Gnassingbe Eyadema. "For the past week or so, the flood of refugees has subsided - it's not in the thousands anymore - but we are still getting 100 to 150 new arrivals every day," Rafik Saidi, the UNHCR representative in Benin, told IRIN. "Today, for example, we received 400-plus refugees in Cotonou. Unlike in the earlier days, when it was women and children, now we are getting young men between the ages of 18 and 30," Saidi said. There are currently 16,500 Togolese refugees in Benin, according to Saidi. Ther are 14,727 more in Ghana according to a UNHCR statement issued on Tuesday. That brings to 31,000 the number of Togolese who have sought shelter in neighbouring countries, up from 24,000 towards the end of last week. The majority of the latest arrivals in Benin are running scared from government security forces, said humanitarian workers who asked not to be named. "There has been an all-out strategy on the part of the Togolese government to project a face of reconciliation and solidarity, but at the same time there are policies of widespread arrests of opponents, and dissidents are either disappearing or being arrested," the humanitarian worker said. "It is happening subtly and at night - so of course people are fleeing," he said. African Union prepares for special Togo summit Key African leaders will hold a special summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Thursday to broker a deal between Gnassingbe and six opposition parties that have challenged his election victory. Yaovi Agboyibo, the coordinator of the six-party alliance which opposed Gnassingbe in last month's presidential election, confirmed in a statement on Saturday that opposition leaders would attend the Abuja meeting. But he gave three conditions to be met before the opposition can agree to deal with Gnassingbe. The conditions include full investigation of alleged election irregularities, an end to harassment of opposition supporters and the holding of internationally supervised talks to work out a transitional power-sharing arrangement. UN officials told IRIN that the opposition want representation in government - including the position of prime minister as well as a complete revamp of the electoral laws. But humanitarian workers are concerned that this will not be enough to encourage Togolese refugees to return home. "There is so much resentment towards the government and many people are angry with the opposition for being weak - they want something more substantive if they are to return home," the humanitarian worker said. The Abuja meeting is being held at the instance of President Olusegun Obasanjo in his capacity as chairman of the African Union. The presidents of Gabon, Ghana, Niger and Benin and representatives of all 15 members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have all been invited, according to Nigerian officials. On April 25, the day after polling and before the results of the presidential election were announced, Gnassingbe flew to the Nigerian capital for a meeting with Obasanjo and the exiled Togolese opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio. That summit ended with a pledge by both sides to form a government of national unity after the election, whatever the result. But the deal fell apart 24 hours later as angry opposition supporters took to the streets to protest at the father-to-son transition after the government announced Gnassingbe's victory. The Togolese League of Human Rights - which has been linked to the opposition - said last week that some 790 people had been killed in the violence. Another report by the Togolese Movement for the Defence of Liberties and of Human Rights (MTDLDH, which is closely aligned to the government, said there were only 58 deaths. UN agencies have not been granted permission by the government to travel into the interior of the country to ascertain the security situation. However, refugees in Ghana and Benin have been turning up with bullet wounds and other potentially fatal injuries, which they say were inflicted by government security forces.