Security forces in Togo fought pitched battles with machete-wielding youths on Wednesday 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 called on his supporters to remain mobilised, warning they might have to sacrifice their lives, Reuters reported. "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. 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. 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. --more 2301 Local Time 2001 GMT
