Alaixys Romao and Jonathan Ayite have withdrawn from Togo's squad for
Friday's World Cup qualifier in Libya, citing security concerns.
Over the weekend,
clashes between protesters and a militia in the city of Benghazi left at least 30 dead.
Romao, 29, was part of the Togolese delegation that lost two members after an attack by Angolan separatists ahead of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations.
"I am about to take off from Lome to return to France," he wrote on Twitter.
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“I will change my mind only if the Fifa officials who made the decision come with us”Alaixys Romao
"For we are clearly not being taken seriously."
"After having been through a traumatising experience in
2010 in Angola, I don't want my family to live with that stress again,"
the Marseille midfielder had stated in an earlier post on the
micro-blogging site.
Libya staged its first home match in over two years on Friday 7 June, drawing 0-0 with DR Congo in a game played under high security in the capital Tripoli.
Football had been absent from the North African nation since the civil war that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi broke out in 2011.
Friday's forthcoming Group I qualifier on 14 June had been originally set for Benghazi, but Fifa announced on Monday that it had been relocated to Tripoli following the "latest security incidents" in the eastern city.
The decision, the world governing body added, had been taken in consultation with the Libyan Football Federation.
"Tripoli or Benghazi - what's the difference?" Romao rhetorically asked on Twitter. "I will change my mind only if the Fifa officials who made the decision come with us."
Togo, who qualified for its sole World Cup in 2006, currently sit bottom of Group I, trailing leaders Libya by just two points with two rounds of matches left.
In January 2010, Togolese football suffered one of its worst days when gunmen - who later claimed to be a faction of the Front for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda - attacked the team bus as it entered Angola for that month's Nations Cup.
A seasoned international with a half century of caps, Romao played at this year's Nations Cup in South Africa, where Togo reached the quarter-finals for the first time in their history.
BBC
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