Tension was mounting on Wednesday in the city of Warri as soldiers hunted for a heavily armed militia that has attacked oil facilities in southern Nigeria and kidnapped four foreign workers.
Boat crews and human rights activists said military forces have deployed in strength on the waterways of the Niger Delta, prompting fears that a bloody crackdown may spark a broader wave of violence in the restive region.
The army on Wednesday confirmed the loss of five soldiers killed and nine missing after militants attacked an oil flow station belonging to Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in southern Nigeria on Sunday.
”I can confirm that we lost five men while nine are still missing. We cannot presume those missing are dead until their corpses have been found,” Colonel Mohammed Yussuf said.
He said the militants opened fire on the soldiers when they attacked the Benisede flow station while the soldiers retaliated, killing ”a large number of them”.
Nigeria is the world’s sixth-biggest oil exporter, producing 2,6-million barrels per day, and the delta crisis has global economic implications, pushing up crude prices and depressing stocks around the world.
Oil prices climbed further on Wednesday, London dealers said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, gained 50 cents to $66,81 per barrel in electronic dealing.
The contract had jumped $2,39 on Tuesday to close at $66,31 per barrel — the highest finish since September 29 — after touching an intra-day high of $66,91.
In London on Wednesday, the price of Brent North Sea crude for March delivery rose 38 cents to $65,28 per barrel. It earlier hit $65,52 per barrel — the highest level since September 22.
Shell, thus far the main target of militia attacks, has shut down production of 211 000 barrels per day in the western delta region.
In Warri, however, the more immediate concern is over the prospect of further violence and for the safety of the oil worker hostages — an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran — who have been missing for a week.
Joseph Evah, leader of the Izon (Ijaw) Monitoring Group, an ethnic rights association, said army and naval patrols are preventing access to the creeks of the western delta swamps between Warri and Bayelsa state.
”Soldiers are now moving en masse into the Niger Delta. We have been trying to persuade them to let us have access to the riverine areas, to see what is happening,” he said as military helicopters flew over the city.
Warri residents fear the latest surge in violence could lead to a return to the dark days of 2003, when clashes between soldiers and rival ethnic gangs in and around the city left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.
”This dispute should be sorted out by dialogue, not by fighting. Things have been better here, but there are still no jobs, so many of the expatriates and their oil companies have left,” said Ijaw boatman Henry Imhanlenjaye.
The latest violence has caused shock even in the delta.
On Sunday, Victor Ejuk, who works for a catering company contracted to Shell, was sleeping in the workers’ camp at Shell’s Benisede flow station on the Bomadi creek when he was woken by gunfire.
”We came running, there was shooting everywhere, the military’s houseboat was in flames. The militant youths came into the place, shooting, killing a lot of people, army and civilians,” he said in Warri.
Ejuk and his surviving colleagues ran into the jungle or dived into the river and hid until sunrise. They were later evacuated, along with at least 10 seriously injured colleagues, to Warri.
On Tuesday, President Olusegun Obasanjo met top-ranking security chiefs and the delta’s political leaders, later announcing that a team had been set up to secure the release of the hostages.
But the group that claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), has vowed to continue until its demands are met and threatened to ”destroy Nigeria’s ability to export oil”.
Mend has demanded the release of Ijaw leaders Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a delta warlord who appeared in court on Tuesday to face treason charges, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former state governor accused of embezzlement. — Sapa-AFP