Militants in Nigeria’s oil heartland said on Thursday they had called off attacks on troops after two bloody gun battles and would fight only in response to actions by the military.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it had killed 17 soldiers in separate fire fights in the Niger Delta on Wednesday but would now hold back as it had been drawn into violence ahead of its original plans.
”There was no fighting at night and we have chosen to react to the Nigerian military and not instigate any fighting,” a spokesperson for the Movement for Mend said in an e-mail to Reuters.
”We are watching the Nigerian military and our actions will be governed by measures they choose to take,” he added.
Mend were behind a wave of attacks on oil installations in February that slashed output. A fifth of Nigeria’s production capacity remains shut in.
After a relatively quiet September, violence has flared this week in the Delta, which accounts for all output from the world’s eighth-biggest exporter. However, the latest incidents have not affected production.
The spiral of violence was set off when about 70 militants attacked a convoy of boats supplying Shell oilfields on Monday, killing at least three soldiers. They stole a barge of diesel and abducted 25 Shell contractors who have now all been freed.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was due to meet senior army chiefs later on Thursday to discuss the situation in the Delta, while a meeting with oil company executives was planned for a later date, a presidential aide said.
Hostages
Seven expatriate oil workers abducted from a residential compound for contractors to ExxonMobil on Tuesday night were in good health, a diplomat said.
”There has been a demand for a ransom. We’re at that stage where the state government is moving towards negotiations,” said the envoy from one of the countries whose nationals were seized when gunmen killed two security guards and invaded their compound.
Kidnappings for ransom are common in the Niger Delta and hostages are usually released unharmed after money changes hands.
Violence in the Delta is rooted in poverty, corruption and lawlessness. Most inhabitants have seen few benefits from five decades of oil extraction that has damaged their environment.
Resentment towards the oil industry breeds militancy, but the struggle for control of a lucrative oil smuggling business and the lure of ransoms have also contributed to the violence. The lines between militancy, crime and business are blurred. — Reuters