Reuters: Nigerian troops raid militia in oil delta: “Tensions have been high in the fishing community since energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell started developing an oilfield at Obioku…” (ShellNews.net) 22 Feb 05
Tue February 22, 2005 2:40 PM GMT+02:00
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian troops fought in a gunbattle for several hours against a group suspected of killing civilians and stealing crude oil in a remote Niger Delta community, officials said on Tuesday.
The raid on Odiama was launched on Saturday in response to the killing of 12 people, including four local councillors, in a boat ambush earlier this month by people embroiled in a bitter dispute over an oil-rich parcel of land.
The wetlands of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria produce almost all of Nigeria's 2.3 million barrels per day of oil, but output was unaffected by the latest fighting.
Tensions have been high in the fishing community since energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell started developing an oilfield at Obioku, which has been claimed by rival communities in the Odiama area.
Military task force commander Elias Zamani said some troops had been stationed at Odiama after the raid, which drove the militia away. Several arrests had been made and one militiaman was killed in the attack, he said.
"We are taking out some troublemakers -- a group of armed men who have been terrorising and killing innocent people in the area," he told Reuters by telephone, adding that the men had also been providing security to tankers stealing crude oil.
Industry officials estimate about 10 percent of Nigerian oil output is stolen and sold on international markets by well connected criminal syndicates.
A Bayelsa state spokesman said the government was investigating the violence but that there was no accurate casualty figure yet.
Nigeria's military has been criticised for using excessive force in attacks on communities sheltering militiamen. In 1999, the army killed hundreds of people in the Odi community in Bayelsa after the killing of 12 policemen, rights activists say.
The oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta has been volatile for decades and local communities feuding over land rights as well as oil revenues clash frequently.
The delta saw an upsurge of fighting in March 2003 when an ethnic Ijaw revolt against their Itsekiri neighbours and oil multinationals killed about 100 people in the western delta.
The bloodletting also forced oil companies to evacuate their facilities, shutting in nearly 40 percent of OPEC-member Nigeria's production.