3 killed in Togo soccer team bus attack
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The death toll from a shooting attack on the bus carrying Togo's national soccer team in Angola's enclave of Cabinda has risen to three, including the team's assistant coach and spokesman, according to reports reaching Luanda on Saturday.
Togo's goalie Kossi Agassa told the France-Info radio by phone that among the casualties, his team's second goalie was also seriously wounded and tranported to South Africa for treatment.
The bus carrying Togo's team was ambushed on Friday in Cabinda by suspected separatists, who sprayed machine gun bullets into the vehicle, killing the Angolan driver on the spot, wounding nine others, marking one of the worst tragedies in African sports history.
The bus had just entered Cabinda, where separatists have waged a three-decade-long war, when it came under heavy gunfire for several minutes.
A separatist group called the Front for the Liberation of Enclave of Cabinda claimed responsibility for the attack, but the claim was immediately rejected by Antonio Bento Bembe, Angola's minister in charge of affairs in Cabinda who said the separatist group no longer existed.
The minister condemned the attack on the Toglese team as an "act of terrorism" carried out by individuals who wanted to cause problems for the government.
Cabinda is a small oil-rich enclave in the very north of Angola, separated from the rest of the country by a strip of land belonging to Congo. Over half of Angola's oil are produced in Cabinda, but local people claimed the get few benefits from the oil produced on their lands.
Cabinda is one of the four Angolan cities of host the CAN2010 final stage matches.
An important delegation be headed by the Angolan minister on internal affairs, ministers of youth and sports, members from the prime minister's office as well as a powerful delegation from CAF is expected to arrive in Cabinda on Saturday to access the situation after the attack.
The Angolan Prime Minister will meet CAF President Issa Hayatou to take decisions to guarantee the smooth running of the CAN2010 competition, which Angola hoped to stage as a national pride and a showcase of its socio-economic development since the civil war ended in 2002.
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