The two car bombs that exploded at the venue of Monday’s post-amnesty dialogue in Delta state, in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta oil region, left three persons dead and six others injured, the local media reported Tuesday.
But the police said only one person died in the explosions, for which the region’s largest militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility.
The report said the three people, all passersby, were burnt to death in an infer no caused by the explosions, which occurred within 15 minutes of each other at the government house venue of the talks, organised by the publisher of the local Vanguard newspaper.
Several top dignitaries, including three state governors and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, were at the venue when the bombs went off, but they were not injured.
The session ended abruptly as the participants scampered to safer grounds.
In an online statement issued earlier, MEND had warned the participants to leave the venue, saying it had planted three bombs there. It said the bombs were meant to stop the talks, which it termed a ‘jamboree’.
Claiming responsibility for the attacks, the group said in another online statement: ”Three such bombs of varying strength were planted at this venue. It was unnecessary to detonate the third and most powerful bomb as our operatives noticed the participants at this jamboree fled towards the direction of the last bomb.”
MEND has also threatened to launch fresh attacks against oil facilities in the region, effectively ending the period of relative peace enjoyed there since the end of the amnesty period for oil militants last year.