Gunmen attack still affecting Villa striker Salifou

Moustapha Salifou admits he is still traumatised by the attack on the Togo team coach at the African Cup of Nations.

Three people, including the coach driver, died in the incident which led to Togo withdrawing from the competition.

Salifou is back training with his Aston Villa team-mates, but he has still to play a game at any level since the attack and the memory of what occurred is never far from his mind.

"You have to try and move on from what happened and it is hard to forget," said Salifou.

"It is difficult to sleep at night. Since I came back here, I keep waking up at three or four o'clock in the morning.

"I dream and think about what happened.

"I have been training and I watched the Carling Cup semi-final against Blackburn and the Arsenal game at Villa Park last week.

"I have to start playing again at some stage, with the reserves or whatever, but thoughts of what happened are never far away.

"I feel for the people who have died and been injured. I have to move on from this but it is not easy."

Salifou admits he thought he was going to die during the 30-minute attack.

He said: "We crossed the boundary into Angola after being given assurances the road was safe and after 15 minutes people started to shoot at the coach.

"The Angolan government told us everything is okay in their country. If they had told us it was not safe, we would have flown in.

"The attackers shot the driver and after two or three minutes all the players had to lie on the floor and everyone was just crying. We had to wait for 30 minutes.

"I did not feel I would make it off that bus alive. We had to lie on the floor and the gun shots passed over our heads. There was blood on the floor of the coach.

"To be honest, I was thinking everyone was going to die in the coach.

"We were told to stop crying and screaming because, if we did that, the attackers would know we were still alive."