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/ 28 March 2007

Nigerian rebels in chaotic fight for oil riches

The young Nigerian rebels smoked marijuana, drank gin and shot into the night sky as they escorted two Italian hostages on speed boats back towards freedom. They steered defiantly past a brightly lit oil-production plant on the banks of the Cawthorne Channel, one of a maze of creeks in the Niger Delta, oblivious to the troops stationed there to protect Africa’s biggest oil industry from attack.