Nigerian separatist guerrillas who are holding three Western hostages said on Thursday that they had fought off an attack by the military in a fierce gun battle on the Niger Delta creeks.
Military spokespersons could not initially confirm or deny there had been a clash, but a boat captain operating in the area confirmed he had seen injured troops and previous rebel claims of fighting have proved accurate.
A statement from an e-mail address used by the kidnappers said at 5.15pm (4.45pm GMT) on Wednesday rebel ”patrols on the Escravos River were attacked in the vicinity of Okerenkoko by four patrol boats belonging to the Nigerian army”.
Okerenkoko is an ethnic Ijaw town 30km west of the port of Warri in the delta swamps and is thought to be where a group known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) is holding the hostages.
The rebel statement claimed that once the firefight broke out three more army boats had arrived, but that the guerrillas — who are armed with rocket propelled grenades and machineguns — had fought them off.
”There was a firefight, which lasted about 45 minutes … The military attack was promptly repelled with heavy losses to the Nigerian army,” it said.
According to the insurgents’ statement, at least seven soldiers were killed in the clash, although this could not be independently verified. The rebels claimed to have suffered no casualties of their own.
On February 18, several boatloads of Mend fighters attacked the energy giant Shell’s huge Foracados oil export terminal, fought a gun battle with navy troops and set fire to a tanker loading platform.
During the attack they stormed a pipeline laying barge operated for Shell by the US engineering firm Willbros and kidnapped nine foreign workers.
Six of the hostages have since been released, but three of them — two Americans and a Briton — are still being held in the delta swamps while the government attempts to negotiate their release through intermediaries. – Sapa-AFP