Full scale fighting, described by Nigerian oil militants as ”all out war’, broke out in the country’s Niger Delta oil region Friday, after the military launched an offe nsive against militants following three days of skirmishes in the region.
Spokesman for the military Joint Task Force (JTF) deployed to the region, Col. Rabe Abubakar, said in a statement that the offensive was aimed at ”fishing out these few criminals who are making the region ungovernable.”
Abubakar said the “cordon and search” operation is aimed at liberating “the people of the Niger Delta from further intimidation, harassment and extortion, by a few groups who use freedom fighting to perpetrate criminalities in the region.”
Moments later, the region’s largest militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), accused the military of launching an ”indiscriminate aerial bombardment on the defenseless civilians in the Gbaramatu area of Delta state to serve as a punishment for the humiliating defeat they suffered when they tried to raid two militant camps on Wednesday, May 13”
It said the casualties from the attacks were mostly women, children and the elderly ”who could not get away quickly into the bush or high sea”
MEND also claimed that an unidentified hostage has been killed by ”stray bullets from the Nigerian Army who attacked an area they were being held in Delta state”
MEND has in its custody one British hostage, while one of its affiliate groups is holding 15 crew members, believed to be Filipinos, from the two vessels they hijacked off the waters of Delta state on Wednesday.
The militants also said they had captured a Nigerian Navy warship, sank six army gunboats and killed or captured many soldiers. The claims could not be independently confirmed.
”The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is declaring an all out war in the region and call upon all men of fighting age to enlist for our freedom.
”We reiterate once again our directive to ALL oil companies to evacuate by the deadline of midnight today (Friday) and cease oil production until further notice. This will be the last time such a warning will be released,” MEND said in a statement, one of the ‘regular updates’ it has issued on the fighting.
An ‘oil war’ declared by the militants last year, following a similar military offensive, further led to cuts in Nigeria’s oil production, already badly slashed by the incessant violent activities of MEND and other militant groups who said they are fighting for a better deal for the impoverished people of the oil region.