A military taskforce (JTF) comprising the army, navy and air
force began raiding three camps which are believed to belong to a notorious
gang leader in Delta state on Thursday, close to the Ayakoroma and Okrika
communities.
The military had warned weeks ago that it would launch
strikes against suspected militant gangs in the Niger Delta, where they have in
recent years severely disrupted Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry, and
urged civilians living in the vicinity of their camps to leave.
“My husband is dead, also my two brothers are dead. There is
nowhere to go now,” said Aunty Polobiri, one of scores of women sheltering in a
warehouse outside the city of Warri who said they had fled the fighting around
Ayakoroma.
“The army came to the house, destroyed the whole place, burned
down the house. Three men were shot in my presence,” said another woman, Niyeta
Egwuere.
The camps lie deep in the creeks and it was not immediately
possible to independently confirm whether civilians had been killed. The
security forces have a tense relationship with some local communities and in
the past there have been claims of high death tolls which could not
subsequently be verified.
The Red Cross said it had received reports of casualties but
had not yet been able to reach the scene of the fighting because of its
remoteness. It said a team would travel with the military to the communities
affected later on Friday.
“I warned the (local Red Cross team) not to go until it is
safe, so they went to the local JTF commander and he agreed to provide access
to them. They will be going to the camps,” a senior Red Cross official told
Reuters.
The military has said it wants to flush out gang leader John
Togo from Delta state, whom security sources say is one of the more dangerous
criminals in the Niger Delta, responsible for violent armed robberies, ambushes
and attacks.
“These are professional soldiers who are conversant with the
rules of engagement. No such thing happened and cannot be allowed during my
tenure in office. We are not in a war situation,” JTF Commander Charles Omorege
told Reuters, when asked about reports that scores of civilians had been
killed.
“A visit to the community and interaction with these people
will suffice. You have my word,” he said.
Resurgent unrest in the Niger Delta risks undermining the
credibility of President Goodluck Jonathan in the run-up to elections next
April and his administration is keen to show he has a grip on criminality
there.
He is the first head of state from the oil region and
brokered an amnesty with militants last August, which saw thousands of gunmen
lay down their weapons and brought more than a year without significant attacks
on the oil industry.
The militants say they are fighting for a fairer share of
the natural wealth for the Niger Delta, whose villages are mired in poverty
despite sitting amidst a 2 million barrel-per-day oil industry, the biggest in
sub-Saharan Africa.
But the line between criminality and militancy is blurred.
Gang leaders have grown rich on the spoils of kidnapping for
ransom and bunkering, the theft of industrial quantities of oil.
The JTF freed 19 hostages from a camp run by a gang leader
known as “Obese” further east in Rivers state two weeks ago, including seven
foreigners taken from an Afren oil rig and eight Nigerians seized from an Exxon
Mobil platform.
“Since we arrested Obese, the eastern delta has been quiet.
That’s what we’ll achieve in the west with the ongoing operation to flush out
John Togo,” JTF spokesman Timothy Antigha said.
“He’s on the run and there are probably other notorious
criminals like him out there because these boys have been involved in
bunkering, kidnapping, robbery for years.”
