Nigerian military helicopters and at least a dozen gunboats opened fire on a community festival in southern Delta state Friday where militant fighters were suspected to be, said a member of Nigeria’s most prominent militant group and a local politician.
The group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said in an emailed statement that it is “declaring an all out war in the region” and restated a warning for all oil companies operating in the area to evacuate by midnight tonight.
“They came with about 12 gunboats and military helicopters,” a MEND member from the southern city of Warri said by phone Friday. “They tried to shoot at the camp and into some other communities. They’ve left now and we’re not sure when they’re coming back. The shooting was very tough.”
The MEND member said many people had been wounded and some were still unaccounted for in the Oporoza village where the festival was held.
The local politician said in an email that the festival was called “Amaseimokumo, meaning ‘cleaning every bad thing in the kingdom.'” He said the holding of the traditional festival, which hadn’t been observed recently, was the idea of regional militant leader known as TomPolo.
Military spokesman Colonel Rabe Abubakar confirmed that a militant camp had been “torched” but denied that there had been an exchange of fire or military or civilian casualties.
Militants on Wednesday hijacked an oil-service vessel, the MV Spirit, which was subcontracted from the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. and on its way to Warri. The ship’s 15-man crew was kidnapped.
“We didn’t fight anybody, it was a rescue and cordon mission,” Col. Abubakar said by phone. “We did torch the camp, and the militants fled.”
Col. Abubakar didn’t deny the use of helicopter gunships. “It’s a mission for land, air and sea, isn’t it?” he said.
MEND later said in a separate email statement that one of its hostages from the MV Spirit had been killed by a stray army bullet during the government attack.
MEND said an “indiscriminate bombardment” was carried out by the military on Friday, and in response MEND had sunk or destroyed as many as six army gunboats, captured three more and that “many soldiers have been killed.”
Attempts to confirm MEND’s claims with the government weren’t successful.
The fighting ended months of relative calm in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta.
May162009