Residents accuse soldiers of burning rural delta town, killing 30

Residents in a rural town in the southern Niger Delta said government troops killed at least 30 people and torched houses during a raid carried out as part of investigations into an oil dispute between two local communities.

More than 200 soldiers in gunboats attacked the remote town of Odioma in the Nembe district of Bayelsa state on Saturday, burning houses and firing at the inhabitants as they fled in confusion, residents said.

Nimi Barigha-Amange, a clan chief in the area, said more than 30 bodies had been recovered and that many people were still missing.

Felix Tuodolo, a local minority rights activist, circulated a list compiled by the Odioma community of 33 people allegedly killed by the soldiers.

But a spokesman for the Nigerian army denied that there had been any deaths in the incident, which took place near the Atlantic coast 80 km southwest of Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's vital oil industry.

“Nobody died. The commander who led the operation didn’t report any deaths,” army spokesman Mohammed Yusuf said.

Both Odioma and the neighbouring town of Obioku each lay claim to a stretch of swampland adjoining the two communities where Shell recently began drilling for oil.

Earlier this month, a boat taking local leaders mediating in the dispute to Obioku was attacked by gunmen, whom the authorities suspect came from Odioma. Four local officials were among the 12 people killed in the attack.

Army spokesman Yusuf said troops had been sent to hunt down those responsible. But he said the soldiers came under fire as they approached Odioma last Saturday and opened fire in return.

A Shell spokesman declined to comment on the violence, saying the land dispute was a matter for the Nigerian authorities to resolve. Shell has in the meantime suspended drilling activities in the disputed patch of swamp land, known as Owukubu.

Violence between communities laying competing claims to oil land and the jobs and welfare amenities associated with it, is rife in the impoverished Niger Delta, the region that produces much of Nigeria's 2.5 million barrels of daily oil exports.

In response to violence by gangs of criminals and militants who steal oil from pipelines, kidnap workers and generally disrupt oil operations, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government has deployed thousands of troops to the region in the past two years.

Under Obasanjo, troops have often been accused of committing brutal atrocities against unarmed civilians in the oil-producing southeast of Nigeria.

In November 1999 soldiers pursuing gunmen who killed 12 policemen, burnt down the town of Odi in the Niger Delta and were accused of killing hundreds of people.