On 16 June, Africa observed the Day of the African Child. This year’s theme focused on universal access to water, sanitation, and hygiene—a date traditionally marked by high-level summits and pledges for a better future. In Togo, government representatives will no doubt deliver soothing speeches as per custom. Yet behind the official rhetoric, the ground reality is stark: to maintain its grip on the country, the regime in Lomé has all too often responded with gunfire, striking innocent children. This is a tragic litany of broken promises and vanished investigations.

From Soweto to Lomé: the shield of child killing

The Day of the African Child was originally established to honour the students of Soweto who, in 1976, rose up demanding quality education and refusing the imposition of Afrikaans. But while many states have since striven to realise these rights, Togo’s system appears to have turned the repression of the youngest into a last political bulwark.

Protecting a child is not limited to declarations of intent. It also requires ensuring they can be born and grow up with dignity. In what pass for hospitals in Togo, mothers still give birth on the floor. Due to lack of resources and infrastructure, maternity wards are overcrowded, sometimes resembling newborn parks where life hangs by a thread.

As sub-regional and international institutions reiterate their short-, medium-, and long-term commitments to children, Lomé pretends to follow suit. But any protest by young people against these systematic violations of their fundamental rights is met with live fire. Even those who are not demonstrating, simply out looking for a means to survive, end up swelling the list of victims.

Jacques Koutoglo: the drowning theory versus a family’s grief

Nearly a year has passed since the family of Jacques Koutoglo began demanding justice. The 15-year-old middle-school student was beaten to death and then thrown into the Bè lagoon in Lomé during the first demonstrations of June 2025. That afternoon, the teenager was not marching; he was simply searching for food.

In the wake of the tragedy, Pacôme Adjourouvi, then Minister of Human Rights, first publicly supported the theory of a “natural drowning” during a period of unrest, before backtracking and announcing the opening of an official investigation to assign responsibility. Since then? Nothing. The minister left his post without ever releasing the findings of the inquiries. The government’s refusal to authorise a memorial mass for the repose of young Jacques’s soul only deepens the sense of injustice felt by an inconsolable family.

Joseph Zoumekey and Rachad Maman: silence as the only response

In 2017, the fate of 13-year-old Joseph Zoumekey had already shown that repression spared no age. Sent by his mother to buy spices in the Bè-Kpota neighbourhood, the child was struck by a live bullet. It took until 2018 and the conclusions of an independent autopsy conducted by experts from Amnesty International to confirm that the cause of death was indeed a gunshot wound, contradicting the official version. Despite repeated calls by the NGO to bring the perpetrators to justice, Faure Gnassingbé’s government remained silent.

The same year, in Bafilo, 14-year-old Rachad Maman suffered the same fate while walking alongside his father to demand democratic reforms. Hit by gunfire aimed at a group of protesters, his case sparked a wave of international outrage, materialised in an Amnesty International petition signed by thousands of people worldwide. The demand was simple: shed light on the matter and try the perpetrators. That request, too, went unanswered.

Anselme Sinandaré and Douti Sinalengue: North and South united in grief

Further north, in Dapaong, the memory of Anselme Sinandaré (aged 12) and Douti Sinalengue (aged 21) remains vivid. In 2012, during a peaceful student demonstration demanding the presence of teachers in classrooms, both were shot dead. More than a decade later, no official procedure has identified the shooters among the security forces.

From the far north to the coast, the observation imposes itself with painful consistency: the lives of children seem to count for very little against the imperatives of staying in power. Dozens of families are thus robbed of their future, seeing their offspring—tomorrow’s leaders—sacrificed with total impunity. This dynamic of repression persists and spans generations since the beginning of the Gnassingbé family’s rule.

Yet Togo is indeed a signatory to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, ratified on 5 May 1998. By leaving these crimes unpunished and these investigations without follow-up, the authorities in Lomé send a clear signal to the international community: respect for treaties ends where the demands of their political survival begin.