Five policemen die in gun battle with sea pirates

At least five Nigerian policemen died when their patrol boat came under fire from gunmen suspected to be sea pirates in the southern Niger Delta on Tuesday, police said. The police boat on an anti-piracy patrol on River Nun in Bayelsa State was ambushed on Tuesday morning by men dressed in army and navy uniforms, a police official in the state capital, Yenagoa, told IRIN. "The superior firepower of the pirates forced some of our men to jump into the water and five of them got drowned," the police official said. Five other policemen survived the attack with gunshot and other injuries and were receiving treatment in hospital, he added. Dozens of people, including 12 policemen, have been killed this year in a spate of pirate attacks in the waterways of Baylesa (part of the oil-rich Niger Delta), which have severely disrupted river transport. Though mainly targeting money and valuables carried by traders on boats plying the area, the pirates are linked to the widespread theft of crude oil from pipelines in the region that are siphoned into barges and transferred to bigger vessels offshore for sale abroad. The frequency of the attacks has forced boat drivers off the worst stricken waterways including River Nun, Forcados River and Tungbo Creek, crippling economic activities in the area. In October the Bayesla State government announced it was setting up a 400-strong vigilante force to assist security agencies in combating piracy and securing oil pipelines frequently vandalised by oil thieves. Nigerian security agencies believe the illegal trade in crude oil provides the funds for the guns currently awash in the oil region, fuelling ethnic violence and criminal activities. A recent report by the International Maritime Bureau ranked Nigeria’s coastal areas only behind that of Indonesia and Bangladesh among countries in the world where pirates were most active in the first six months of this year.