Gunmen kill nine in attack on Nigerian oil complex


By Dave Clark
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 01 25 06

Gunmen stormed a riverside oil complex in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt in a fleet of speedboats on Tuesday and shot dead eight policemen and a civilian worker, officials said.

The gang stole money before making its escape, suggesting robbery was at least part of its motive, but the raid also came shortly after separatists threatened to step up attacks on the oil industry.

Africa's biggest oil industry is in crisis after two months of increasingly violent attacks on company sites and the kidnapping of four foreign oil workers by an armed ethnic militia.

Local resident Damka Pueba told AFP she heard gunfire from a site known as the Agip Industrial Area in the city's Mgboshimini district, a large complex of offices, workshops and jetties run by the Italian energy giant.

"One of the staff came out, she was crying. She said some boys came in speedboats and got into the company and just started shooting," Pueba said, adding that the witness saw dead policemen being loaded onto a jeep.

"The installation was attacked between about 2.00 pm (1300 GMT) and 2.30 pm.

The attackers came over the water and attacked the section of the base which houses a bank," said Maurizio Bungaro, Italy's consul general in Nigeria.

"The attackers killed nine people in all, eight police officers and a Nigerian employee ... there were no dead among the assailants. The attack was well organised and they were able to take their loot and go," he added.

Agip's parent company ENI confirmed the death toll and added that an undetermined number of people were injured in the "exchange of fire".

"ENI has temporarily evacuated the installation and the situation is for the moment under control," the firm said, in a statement.

Port Harcourt's police chief, Commissioner Samuel Adetuyi, confirmed that there had been an incident, but gave no details.

The gunmen were clad in camouflage fatigues and military-style berets and killed an accountant before making off in their boats with two large bags of money, Pueba said, citing witnesses.

The Niger Delta swamps around Port Harcourt are home to several well-armed illegal militias, which combine agitation for ethnic Ijaw independence with a variety of criminal activities, including piracy.

The Port Harcourt shootings are the latest in a series of bloody incidents to rock Nigeria, which produces 2.6 million barrels of crude per day and is the world's sixth largest exporter.

It was not immediately clear whether the gunmen who raided Agip are linked to a separatist militia which in the past three weeks has blown up a major oil pipeline, killed 14 soldiers and kidnapped four foreign oil workers.

The assault had the hallmarks of ethnic Ijaw militias that operate in the Niger Delta swamps in a network of shifting alliances among pirates, separatists and gangs affiliated to local politicians.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has set up a panel to find a "political solution" to the crisis and secure the hostages' safe release.

A spokesman for the gang, in a statement sent from an e-mail address used by the militants, dismissed rumours any release was imminent.

"We are seeking to capture more rather than thinking of setting them free. Be assured however that the hostages will not taste freedom for as long as the Nigerian government holds any of our citizens," he said.

On January 11, separatist rebels stormed an oil industry supply ship operating off the Niger Delta, kidnapping its American skipper, a British security expert, a Honduran engineer and a Bulgarian oil worker.

The hostages have been hidden in the creeks and mangrove forests of the delta and statements purportedly from the gang have demanded the release of two

Ijaw leaders, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Mujahid Dokubo Asari.

Alamieyeseigha was Nigeria's only Ijaw state governor until last month when he was arrested on suspicion of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars. He appeared in court in Lagos on Tuesday on corruption charges.

Asari, a warlord who previously led an armed revolt, is standing trial in Abuja on a treason charge.

The militants have demanded that Shell, for whom the hostages were working as sub-contractors, pay 1.5 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros) in compensation to villages polluted by spills.

Shell's production has been forced down by 211,000 barrels per day.

AFP 01/24/06

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved

 

 

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