Economic activities were temporarily suspended in Port Harcourt on Monday morning, as gunmen suspected to be militants engaged the police and other law enforcement agents in a gun battle for hours.
The shooting affected rocked parts of Azikiwe Road in Port Harcourt old Township and Abonnema Wharf Junction.
One account had it that the gunmen moved from the Borokiri area of the city to Sangana in Diobu in the early hours of the day to avenge the two persons, who were killed the previous night
The source said that on arrival at Sangana, and not being able to locate the leader of a group they were looking for, the gunmen killed two persons believed to be closely related to the wanted man and left.
But in a bid to repel the attackers, militants from the Sangana area mobilised and blocked all roads in Diobu, including Njamanze, Abonnema and part of Ikwerre Road and engaged their attackers in a fierce battle.
The crossfire reportedly forced banks located on the roads to shut down and lock their staff in to avoid being hit by stray bullets.
Most of the banks turned back customers and referred them to other branches in the city as the bombings rocked the town.
But the police, aided by some soldiers, rushed in and fought back the militants, who retreated as they fired shots in different directions.
The Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu, who confirmed the attacks, described the situation as a fight between two rival cult groups in the state.
Ogbaudu said that no fewer than seven persons might have been killed in the attacks.
But at the Rivers State-owned Braithwaite Memorial Hospital, no fewer than 10 corpses were taken to the mortuary by police patrol vans from the scenes of the attacks.
The Divisional Police Officer for the Mile One Police Station, Mr. Emma Asufi, said his men were able to contain the attackers. He said normalcy had been restored around 10 am when our correspondent visited the station.
The two cult groups were said to have disagreed on the sharing of some money given to them by some unnamed politicians.