They launched a massive attack including aerial bombings that was aimed at finding a wanted militant. Civilians caught in the middle tried to escape with their lives, human rights activists say.
As many as 150 people died in the fighting Wednesday and subsequent raids around Ayakoromor, a village lacking mobile phone reception and only accessible via the Niger Delta's maze of winding creeks, activists say. However, the military says it fired only after being fired upon.
Still, the violence represents yet another example of how those toiling in poverty in a region that makes billions for Nigeria find themselves caught between a military seeking revenge and power-hungry militants.
"In this country, we have only two classes of being," said Casely Omon-Irabor, a lawyer representing the hunted militant John Togo. "The oppressed and the oppressor."
The attack around Ayakoromor, a small village in Delta state, included heavy machine gun blasts from Navy vessels and bombing runs by military aircraft. However, the region's main military commander in the fight against militants denied Saturday that any civilian died in the recent assaults, while acknowledging soldiers opened fire on the shoreline of the civilian village after reportedly being shot at.
"We were taken aback by the volume of fire that was brought to bear on the troops when we approached Ayakoromor on the way to John Togo's camp," Gen. Charles Omoregie told journalists at a news conference. "Soldiers had to fight their way into the camp."
Omoregie said homes in the village burned after ricocheting rifle rounds exploded gasoline and kerosene canisters.
Those with family in the village, like engineer Yeigagha Henry, offered a different account. Residents able to escape the village told him his 76-year-old father died at the hands of the soldiers.
"They set the house ablaze," Henry calmly recounted Saturday in the nearby city of Okwagbe. "He died inside."
A list compiled by Oghebejabor Ikim, national coordinator for the Warri-based Forum of Justice and Human Rights Defense, identified 18 of the dead. Ikim said residents told him that soldiers burned down the local customary court and a maternity ward, as well as many homes in the area.
Access to Ayakoromor remained tightly controlled by the military Saturday. Officials with the Nigerian Red Cross made it inside, but a military commander blocked journalists from entering the village, citing a security risk.