Death toll mounts as violence escalates in Niger Delta

Violence has escalated in southern Nigeria's Niger Delta, with militants from one community attacking villages populated by a rival ethnic group and storming an oil facility, officials and residents said on Tuesday. At least seven people were killed on Monday when armed Ijaw militants in speed boats attacked the Itshekiri villages of Aruton and Madangho, residents said, bringing the death toll in a week of clashes to 15. Shell said its logistics base in Escravos was also burnt down by the attackers. Company spokesman Frank Efeduma said five oil pumping stations in the area had been closed and their staff evacuated, thus reducing the company's daily output by 76,000 barrels. "We had to evacuate and close those stations in the face of the war between the ethnic groups," Efeduma told IRIN. "We think life comes first before oil." ChevronTexaco, another oil transnational with facilities in Escravos, said two of its contract workers were hit by stray bullets during Monday's attack and that one of them died on Tuesday. "We wish to state that this unrest is neither directed at our operations nor at our people," ChevronTexaco spokesman Sola Omole said in a statement on Tuesday. He said what had started as a protest against "political actions" ahead of coming elections had degenerated into an ethnic feud. Many displaced residents of the affected communities took refuge inside ChevronTexaco's Escravos compound and arrangements were being made to transfer them to other safe locations, Omole added. The latest violence brought to 15 the number of people who had died since Ijaw militants and naval troops exchanged gunfire at the Ijaw village of Okerenkoko on 13 March. Five civilians and two soldiers were killed in that clash. Ijaw militants abducted three policemen on the following day when they accosted a Shell barge taking supplies to an oil location. Up to Tuesday, the policemen had not been freed, police said. Activists of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) said in a statement that the naval troops had sparked the latest round of violence in the volatile region when they raided Okerenkoko on Thursday. The soldiers had accused community members of planning to disrupt Shell's oil operations in the area and to attack nearby communities. The conflict is directly linked to a violent dispute which broke out in Warri in February between the Urhobo and the Itshekiri communities over the delineation of electoral wards ahead of general elections in April-May. The Ijaws have sided with the Urhobo, alleging that the distribution of wards favoured the Itshekiri.