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Nigerian oil town erupts again
17/09/2003 13:41 - (SA)
Lagos - Several people have been killed in a gunbattle between security forces and armed youths in two days of clashes near Warri, the troubled Nigerian oil city, police said on Wednesday.
Police and troops shot several members of a gang of protesters who were burning homes in Effurun, just outside the Niger Delta river port, on Tuesday, divisional police officer Joseph Abiona said.
One day earlier four civilians had been shot dead when violence broke out between a church congregation and local youths, he added. Press reports put Tuesday's death toll at ten protesters.
"The youths engaged the joint patrol team of police, soldiers and navy in a gun battle. A number of people were killed," Abiona said.
He said the pastor of the church had refused to pay the youths protection money for a building he was erecting. Security patrols were deployed to the area to quell the unrest.
Warri is at the centre of the volatile oil-rich Niger delta region where community unrest and attacks on oil facilities have left hundreds of people dead and property valued at millions of dollars destroyed in recent months.
In March, almost a third of Nigeria's two million barrels per day of oil output was halted when unrest forced oil majors out of the Warri region.
Production has been increased or diverted elsewhere to make up the export shortfall, but oil operations in much of the western Delta region is still shutdown.
The Nigerian government has sent a joint military taskforce to maintain peace in the city and fight the activities of pirates and oil thieves, who tap pipelines and siphon off millions of dollars in crude.
- AFP
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