By Silvia Aloi
Lome - Security forces in Togo rounded up men and women to clear rocks and tree trunks from the capital's streets on Thursday in the first day of calm since the election victory of the former authoritarian ruler's son.
Many of the people using dust pans, bare hands and bundles of reeds to clear the roads in Lome's opposition stronghold of Be said they had been forced to work by police and soldiers, who stood nearby or watched from trucks mounted with machine guns.
A Reuters reporter saw security forces in one area beating people with sticks as they worked. One man showed his swollen hand and cried: "They are beating us. They wanted to kill us."
Communication Minister Pitang Tchalla said the government had to keep public order. "Peace must be restored in all the capital. We want things to calm down," he said.
Days of clashes between security forces and opposition youths in Lome left at least 30 people dead and about 150 injured after Faure Gnassingbe, son of former leader Gnassingbe Eyadema, was declared winner of a poll his opponents say was fixed.
Around 4 000 people have fled into neighbouring Benin and Ghana since Sunday's election, the UN refugee agency said.
Although Lome was calm on Thursday, there were reports of unrest elsewhere. In Aneho, 45 km (28 miles) to the east near Benin, people fled, saying they had been attacked by soldiers.
"They are shooting all around the town. They entered our houses," said one man heading out of Aneho.
A medical worker based in Aneho said two villages on the road to Benin had been attacked by helicopters and that two people were killed and six injured. Another hospital source in Aneho said nine people had been killed in clashes there.
Aid workers said eight people were killed in the central town of Atakpame. It was impossible to independently verify the reports.
The former French colony spun into chaos when Eyadema died in February after 38 years in power and army leaders named Gnassingbe to replace him. He eventually quit under fierce international pressure and called elections.
Sunday's poll was effectively a referendum on four decades of repressive rule by Eyadema, who led a 1963 coup and eventually became Africa's longest-serving leader.
The Lome suburb of Be was the scene of fierce pitched battles between opposition youths, frustrated by Eyadema's long reign and the prospect of his son taking over, and security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
Assou, 39, said the security forces were going house-to-house on Thursday and ordering people to clean up the bricks, overturned tables and branches used to build barricades.
"They smashed in the door. They told us to get out and pick up the stones," he said as police and soldiers, some wearing balaclavas, watched. One yelled "work, work."
Opposition leaders accuse Gnassingbe's camp of massive fraud and their losing candidate, Emmanuel Akitani-Bob, has declared himself president, drawing a sharp warning from the interim president that anyone obstructing democracy would be detained.
Akitani-Bob won 38,19 percent of the vote against Gnassingbe's 60,22 percent.
International reaction to the election has been mixed, with France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) calling it satisfactory despite some irregularities but the United States questioning the results.
Louis Michel, European commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, said he was seriously concerned about the violence and called for a return to calm.
(Additional reporting by John Zodzi, Emmanuel Braun and Noel Tadegnon; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)