Togo goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale has asked for help returning home, admitting that his continued stay in South Africa is crushing his spirit.
Obilale has been in hospital in South Africa since he was airlifted there following the machine-gun attack on the Togo team as they travelled to their opening African Nations Cup game last month.
The 25-year-old has been given the go ahead to return to France, but Angola are refusing to pay the repatriation costs for the Pontivy goalkeeper.
“I don’t have any morale left,” Obilale told French radio station RTL. “It’s been a month and a half now that I’ve been in bed here. My life is to turn left or turn right.
“I’m scared of getting worse because what I’m experiencing at night is horrible, I see the soldiers, I’m going to war as I’m going to the Cup. Every night I experience this in my sleep. And there’s no-one here that’s giving me any news. The great desire is to go back home.
“The Angolans tell me they are waiting for the word from the doctors but every day I see the doctor who operated on me and he says it’s okay. The big problem is that they can’t pay the repatriation costs. It’s that that’s breaking my morale.”
“People from the Angolan government came here with flowers but I don’t know what I’m meant to do with them. I have no house to put them in. I just want to go home. To be next to my children and those closest to me, that’s all I’m asking for.
“They shot at me, now today they can’t repatriate me. That’s why I’m making this appeal so that people can help me leave this hospital bed.”
Pontivy president Philippe Le Mestre has also slammed the Angolan government, adding that as organisers they “promised to pay for everything but nothing is forthcoming”.