Journalists, human rights activists and opposition leaders took to the streets of the Togolese capital, Lome, on Wednesday to protest the recent beating of an editor of an opposition newspaper. “The government must open a serious investigation into this attack, to identify, try and punish those responsible,” Carlos Ketohou, president of Togo’s Journalists for Human Rights, said during the demonstration.

According to news reports, some 40,000 Togolese refugees have so far fled into neighbouring Benin and Ghana since clashes broke out around the 24 April presidential polls. Over 60 per cent of the refugees are women, young people and children under five. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that about 200 refugees are currently being registered each week. To meet the continuing maternal health needs of the refugee population, the United Nations Population Fund, is working with Benin’s Government to set up health posts in refugee camps.

The African Union has finally confirmed the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) on the Rights of Women in Africa by Cape-Verde. There are now twelve instruments of ratification deposited out of the fifteen that are needed for it to enter into force. The Council of Ministers of Togo adopted at its meeting of July 27th 2005 in Lomé a bill authorizing the ratification.

People are still fleeing Togo more than three months after disputed presidential polls and the refugees, who now number 40,000, are showing no sign of wanting to go home, the UN refugee agency said as it repeated an appeal to donors for money. "The story we hear relentlessly repeated is that while by day the situation is calm, it is at night that things happen," said one aid worker in Benin, who asked not to be named.

The human rights group Amnesty International has issued a report alleging serious human rights violations in Togo during the West African country's recent elections. The document, entitled 'Togo: Will History Repeat Itself?', was released Wednesday. It accuses the Togolese security forces and pro-government militants of targeting suspected opponents and other citizens in a campaign of extrajudicial executions, torture, rape, kidnappings and arbitrary arrests.

Togo’s slide into political chaos following the disputed presidential elections in April 2005 has forced several thousand people to flee their homes, killed scores and wounded many more. While some 34,000 people have fled to neighbouring Benin and Ghana, UN agencies working with international and local NGO partners estimate that 12,000 people have been displaced within Togo's borders, especially in the Plateaux and Central regions.

Togo's ruler Faure Gnassingbé has announced the country's new government, which includes his own brother, hardliners from his father's military dictatorship and a few detractors from the opposition. International calls to form a national unity government after the 24 April rigged elections thus have finally failed.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, is sending a fact-finding team to Togo next week to investigate allegations of rights violations in the wake of the West African country's recent elections. Arbour has appointed human rights expert Doudou Diene to head the mission, which is expected to arrive in Togo on 13 June and stay there for two weeks, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.

A split has developed in the African Union, with its chairman publicly rebuking the head of its commission. The row between chairman Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president, and Alpha Oumar Konare is the union's most public since its formation in 2002. It concerns who has the final say on Togo, which has been in turmoil since controversial elections in April. President Obasanjo was reportedly angry he had not been consulted over the appointment of a special envoy.

With little time left before the end of the school year and exams, 1,600 Togolese refugee children went back to school on Monday in camps set up in Benin for refugees who have fled Togo’s post-election unrest. Children of all ages, from nursery school children to teenagers hoping to complete their final secondary-school exams, flopped down on mats laid out on floors of makeshift classrooms provided by the UN children’s agency UNICEF at the Lokossa refugee camp, which lies 18 km away from the Togolese border.

A month to the day after Togo’s disputed presidential election, murder, rape and kidnappings by the security forces are continuing to drive people across the borders in search of shelter, refugees and human rights leaders said on Tuesday. “There have been several hundred victims,” Sidiki Kaba, the president of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) said in an interview on Radio France Internationale. “A man-hunt is on that takes place at nights.”

Talks on forming a government of national unity between newly elected President Faure Gnassingbe and Togo's main opposition parties have ended without agreement, but the failure of these negotiations caused little surprise on the streets of the capital Lome on Friday. Gnassingbe held talks with exiled opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio and other prominent opposition figures in the Nigerian capital Abuja last Thursday.

With the outflow of Togolese fleeing disputes over presidential elections slowing significantly, the United Nations refugee and food distribution agencies are making sure that host families in neighbouring Benin and Ghana can bear the burden of the nearly 31,000 refugees they have taken in.

The Togolese League of Human Rights said on Friday that 790 people had been killed and 4,345 hurt in political violence triggered by the recent election of Faure Gnassingbe to succeed his father as president of the West African nation. “The international community must hold an inquiry given the scale of the human rights violations,” Ayayi Apedo-Amah, the secretary-general of the organisation, told IRIN.

The main opposition parties in Togo have agreed to meet President Faure Gnassingbe at a reconciliation summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday to discuss their possible participation in a government of national unity. Yaovi Agboyibo, the coordinator of the six-party alliance, which opposed Gnassingbe in last month's presidential elections, confirmed in a statement on Saturday that opposition leaders would attend the Abuja meeting, convened by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairman of the African Union.

The exodus from Togo has slowed to a trickle while hundreds of Togolese refugees have returned home from Ghana, citing improved security in their homeland. Those in Benin, however, say they are not ready to go back to Togo. More than 3,500 refugees are now living in two camps in Benin – Come, which is now full, and Lokossa, where the population is growing steadily.

Young men, old women and children among the thousands who fled violence in Togo said they were too scared to go home after security forces shot at unarmed civilians in post-election chaos. More than 11,500 people have fled the tiny West African country since trouble erupted last Tuesday, minutes after the late authoritarian ruler's son was declared winner of a poll his opponents say was fixed.

Telephone, Internet and fax communications in Togo have become increasingly difficult since 22 April 2005, making it virtually impossible for local and international media to work effectively. Jacques Djakouti, president of the Union of Free Radio and Television Stations (URATEL), told Reporters sans frontières (RSF) that telecommunications had been virtually blocked in the country since the 24 April presidential election.

Emmanuel Akitani-Bob, an opposition candidate in the presidential election held Sunday in Togo, declared himself winner of the poll Wednesday. This came a day after the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) announced that Faure Gnassingbe, son of deceased head of state Gnassingbe Eyadema, was the provisional winner. Tuesday's announcement was greeted with outrage by opposition supporters, who erected barricades and burned tires in the Togolese capital, Lome, to protest the outcome of the poll.

The High Authority for Broadcasting and Communication (HAAC), the regulatory body of the media, on Thursday, April 21, slapped a one-month suspension on a private radio station Kanal FM for broadcasting what it described as a "defamatory, tendentious and insulting editorial". According to a Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) Togo source a HAAC directive issued on Friday, April 15, barred all private radio and television stations from covering the campaign for the elections due to be held on April 24, 2005.