A third straight night of gunbattles between ethnic factions and security forces left at least 10 people dead in the Nigerian oil city of Warri, police said on Monday.
”We learnt 10 people were killed around the Odion Road Market, Ekurede and Ugbuwangue areas of the city yesterday. Up to 20 houses were burnt in these places. Many vehicles were damaged,” a senior officer said.
”There is calm now. The security agents are on top of the situation,” he said, asking not to be identified.
”People are fleeing Warri to the neighbouring towns of Sapele and Ughelli,” he added.
Warri has since March been at the centre of a conflict between the Itsekiri ethnic group and the neighbouring Ijaws, who are vying for supremacy in the oil-rich coastal swamps west of the city.
Fighting erupted again last week after a relative lull in a conflict that has seen scores killed, driven at least 8 000 people from their homes and forced multinational oil companies to abandon many of their wells.
Messio German, a spokesman for a hardline Ijaw faction, said that the latest fighting had broken out after Itsekiri militants attacked an Ijaw trading settlement on the city’s waterfront.
”They were coming to attack the Nigeria Port Authority area. The Ijaws had to mount a defensive counter-attack,” he said. ”Seven Ijaws were injured, and three of our houses were burned down.”
The Nigerian army deployed three armoured cars and troop reinforcements to the area, witnesses said, and fighting broke out between the soldiers and both of the ethnic factions.
Combatants from both sides were armed with assault rifles and machine guns, witnesses said. — Sapa-AFP