Eventually, the players were rescued from their pockmarked bus bearing shattered windows and taken to a hospital on the outskirts of Cabinda City.
Riding alongside Adebayor was his personal assistant Stanislas Ocloo, who was working as a media officer for Togo’s football federation.
“He would not stop complaining ‘Oh, my stomach’, but what we were seeing is a small hole like when you get an injection,” the former striker, then a Manchester City player, said.
“When we reached the hospital and carried him on a stretcher, I [said] ‘My friend, you have to be strong. Can you promise me you will try?’
“When the doctor came, he actually said he had two or three bullets through the same hole. So when Stan heard that, he gave up.
“I’m like: ‘No, you have to go through it. The family is waiting for you in Togo. We are all with you’.
“Then I realised the head was not moving anymore.
“I had never seen anybody die in front of me, so I didn’t know how people died.
“So I’m like, ‘Come on, Stan’. I was calling the guy for hours. He wouldn’t respond. So literally, I saw somebody die in front of me.
“You actually see somebody closing his eyes for the last time ever. It’s so, so hard to believe.”
Ocloo was one of the two Togolese delegation members to die that day, with assistant coach Amelete Abalo also fatally shot.
Obilale, meanwhile, has been paralysed below the waist ever since.
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