Nigeria’s main militant group said it repelled military forces attacking one of its camps Thursday in the restive southern region of Africa’s biggest petroleum producer.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail statement that three gunboats filled with army troops attacked the camp around dawn, but that militant reinforcements were called in to fend off the government soldiers.
The group said that at least six military personnel died in the fighting, with three of its fighters suffering wounds. The military wasn’t immediately available for comment and the militant group’s claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Previous military raids on militant camps have touched off wider violence in the Niger Delta region. The two sides generally shy away from direct engagement in the Scotland-sized region’s vast maze of creeks, islands and mangrove swamps.
The militant group also said an incident the previous day where unidentified gunmen fired on a helicopter servicing the oil industry showed that all helicopters were under threat, except those ferrying medical personnel or UN aircraft.
The militant group emerged about three years ago, launching sophisticated attacks on export terminals, foreign workers and oil infrastructure that has slashed output from Nigeria.
The militant group, which is an umbrella organization that cobbles together alliances among the Niger Delta’s myriad criminal gangs, says it’s agitating to force the federal government to send more oil-industry funds to the deeply impoverished region where the crude is pumped.
The government acknowledges legitimate grievances among the Niger Delta’s residents, but says the militant groups are criminals who use politics to mask their illegal acts, chiefly the lucrative trade in crude oil tapped from pipelines and sold to overseas refineries.