Posted by By Okafor Ofiebor/ Port Harcourt on
Rival militant factions in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta have clashed in an apparent turf war, killing at least one soldier from an army unit sent to intervene, a military spokesman said today.
Rival militant factions in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta have clashed in an apparent turf war, killing at least one soldier from an army unit sent to intervene, a military spokesman said today.
The fighting started late yesterday, at Abonnema, around 14 km (9 miles) west of the main oil industry city of Port Harcourt, military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, said.
'We deployed our men to the area. Unfortunately our men were ambushed by the militants and there was heavy exchange of gunfire. We lost one soldier and killed two militants in the ensuing battle," he said.
Dr Chris Ekiyor, the President of Ijaw Youth Council, confirmed the incident in a chat with P.M.News. He added that efforts were on to end the hostilities among the militant groups.
The fighting underscores the deteriorating security situation in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Nigeria's 2 million barrels per day oil industry, where militants have been blowing up pipelines and criminal gangs kidnapping people for ransom.
'It is just getting messier. It looks like there is a rupture developing between the main protagonists," one private security contractor working in the world's eighth biggest crude oil exporter said.