Blast kills seven in north Togo

Ant-riot policemen arrives to check supporters of opposition leader and presidential candidate of the National Alliance for Change (ANC) party Jean-Pierre Fabre during ANC's last election rally of the campaign in Lome on February 20, 2020. - Opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre has intensified campaign ahead of February 22 election to defeat incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe whose family has been ruling Togo since over five decades, yet is seeking re-election for the fourth term despite widespread protests by the opposition calling for the end of his family's decades-long grip on power. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)

An explosion in northern Togo has killed seven people, the military said on Sunday, without giving further details about the blast.

The explosion happened in Tone prefecture near the border with Burkina Faso, where a Sahel jihadist insurgency is threatening to spill over into coastal West African nations.

Togo last month declared a state of emergency in its northern prefectures over the threat of Islamist militant attacks from north of its border.

Togo’s army said in a statement the explosion on Saturday in Margba village in Tone killed seven and wounded two more.

It did not give more details and did not describe it as an attack.

“An investigation is ongoing to determine the circumstances of this explosion and identify the perpetrators,” the army statement said.

Eight Togolese soldiers were killed in May in an attack in northern Togo near the border with Burkina Faso.

Togo’s troops are deployed in the north of the country to try and contain a jihadist threat pushing south from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger where militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group operate.

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