Nigerian militants accused troops of razing a village in the oil-producing Niger Delta on Thursday and threatened reprisals but a military spokesman denied an attack on the Elem-Tombia community had occurred
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email to media no one was killed in the army’s attack on the village in Rivers state because the residents had fled.
“In the light of this attack on a helpless community, we are at present considering reciprocal action against the military or oil installations in Rivers,” a MEND spokesman said.
But Sagir Musa, army spokesman in the Rivers state capital Port Harcourt, said: “There is no truth in the story that the military have attacked any community in the creeks.”
MEND fighters fought two gunbattles with troops in Rivers on Wednesday, killing 17 soldiers. The militants had said earlier on Thursday they would not instigate any further fighting but would respond only to actions by the military.
The Niger Delta, which produces all crude from the world’s eighth-biggest exporter, has a long history of militant attacks on oil facilities and kidnappings of oil workers that have sometimes been followed by army raids on villages in the creeks.
Violence flared up in the vast wetlands region this week after a relatively quiet September.
ABDUCTIONS
On Monday, about 70 militants from another group attacked a convoy of boats supplying Royal Dutch Shell oilfields in Rivers. The gunmen killed at least 10 soldiers and abducted 25 Shell contractors who have now all been freed.
On Tuesday, gunmen invaded a residential compound for contractors with ExxonMobil in neighboring Akwa Ibom state, killing two Nigerian security guards and kidnapping four Britons, a Romanian, a Malaysian and an Indonesian.
A diplomat said on Thursday the captives were in good health and that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom for their release.
MEND has been threatening all year to halt Nigerian oil exports completely but has yet to show it can carry out the threat.
The group was behind a wave of attacks on oil installations in February that slashed output. A fifth of Nigeria’s production capacity remains shut down.
The latest incidents have not affected production.
Earlier, President Olusegun Obasanjo met senior army chiefs and the governors of Rivers and Akwa Ibom to discuss the situation.
The army chiefs declined to comment on the outcome of the talks at the presidential villa in Abuja but Akwa Ibom Governor Victor Attah said he had argued against a military crackdown.
“We have to have dialogue with the people to know what they want and in this case they just want development, empowerment and opportunities for employment,” he told reporters.
Violence in the delta is rooted in poverty, corruption and lawlessness. Most inhabitants have seen few benefits from five decades of oil extraction that has damaged their environment.
Resentment toward the oil industry breeds militancy, but the struggle for control of a lucrative oil smuggling business and the lure of ransoms have also contributed to the violence. The lines between militancy, crime and business are blurred.