LUANDA, Angola (AFP) — Gunmen shot at buses carrying Togo’s football team to the African Nations Cup in Angola yesterday, leaving one dead and nine wounded, but organisers insisted the tournament would go ahead.

Two players were among the injured, while a driver was killed as bullets sprayed at the team’s vehicles as they crossed into the troubled Angolan province of Cabinda from Congo-Brazzaville, according to a Togo official.

Many dived under their seats when the gunfire started. Squad member Thomas Dossevi said the team — one of the strongest in African football — had been “fired on like dogs”.

Two players — goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale and defender Serge Akakpo — were among the wounded, Dossevi told AFP.

“One of them (Akakpo) took a bullet in the back and the other (Obilale) was hit in the kidneys,” Dossevi said. “The assailants were hooded and armed to the teeth. We stayed under the seats for 20 minutes. It was horrible.”

Obilale plays at French fifth division side GSI Pontivy while Akakpo plays with Romanian outfit Vaslui.

Two English Premiership players — Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor and Aston Villa midfielder Moustapha Salifou — emerged unharmed from the attack, their clubs said.

The armed wing of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), embroiled in a decades-long separatist struggle, claimed responsibility in a communique cited by Portugal’s Lusa news agency.

“This operation is only the start of a series of targeted actions that will continue in all the territory of Cabinda,” it said.

The mid-afternoon ambush targeted Angolan armed forces escorting the Togolese side, FLEC said. It went on to claim that one person had been killed and three seriously wounded.

FLEC signed a peace deal with Angola’s government in 2006, but in recent months has claimed a spate of attacks on the military and foreign oil and construction workers in the province.

The former FLEC leader who signed the peace deal, Antonio Bento Bembe denounced the shooting as a “terrorist” act. He added that his erstwhile rebellion no longer existed as a unified force.

The head of the Togolese football federation, Willy Dogbatse, told AFP that the other injured included members of the sporting, administrative and medical staff accompanying the team to the tournament that kicks off tomorrow.

All were being treated in a hospital in Cabinda city.

The gunfire broke out as they were pulling away from the border crossing, players said.

Richmond Forson, who plays with French fourth division side Thouars, told the French sports channel Infosport that a bus carrying the team’s baggage took the worst of the gunfire.