Nigerian troops raided several villages on the outskirts of the country’s main oil-industry centre of Port Harcourt in search of gunmen said to be responsible for a spate of hostage-takings targeting foreign oil workers, a military spokesperson said.
Several arrests were made and illegal weapons recovered during the raids on Saturday on the Okrika and Ogbakiri districts just outside Port Harcourt, said Major Sagir Musa, spokesperson for the military task force charged with security in the troubled oil region.
”These areas are notorious for kidnapping of oil workers, so we’re basically trying to flush out the militants and recover illegal arms,” Musa said.
The raids will continue until armed groups in the two districts are flushed out, Musa said.
More than 60 foreign oil workers have been seized this year in the oil-rich Niger Delta in attacks carried out by a mix of armed militants seeking increased local control of the region’s oil wealth and criminals kidnapping for ransom. The last known hostage, a French oil worker, was freed on Friday.
A year of intensified violence across the Niger Delta, where nearly all of Nigeria’s oil is produced, has cut a quarter of Nigeria’s daily oil exports of 2,5-million barrels and helped send global oil prices to new highs.
Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil producer and the fifth-biggest source of United States oil imports. — Sapa-AP