Nigeria - oil

Nigerian rebels and Cameroon troops in deadly clash

Thursday 24 July 2008

One Cameroonian soldier was killed and several Nigerian militants killed in gunfight in the Bakassi area, which Nigeria is transferring to Cameroon. The region is close to Nigerian oil fields where armed groups have disrupted extraction (photo).

YAOUNDE - Cameroonian soldiers killed 10 gunmen who attacked them on Thursday in the Bakassi peninsula, a long-disputed territory Nigeria is transferring to Cameroon under a World Court order, Cameroon's Defence Ministry said.

A spokesman for the Niger Delta Defence and Security Council (NDDSC), a little-known armed Nigerian group opposed to the handover of the oil-rich territory, said its men had launched Thursday's attack but said only four of them had been killed.

"The locality of Kombo-Abedimo was attacked by an armed band ... on three speed boats," Cameroon's Defence Ministry said in a statement broadcast on state radio.

"Following a ripost from our naval defence forces, 10 of the attackers were killed, eight others captured and an important stock of arms and ammunition on one of the speed boats seized," it said.

Four Cameroonian soldiers were shot, one of whom died of his wounds on the way to hospital, the ministry said.

Nigerian forces are due to complete their long-delayed full withdrawal from Bakassi in mid-August to comply with a 2002 World Court order.

But some Nigerians are opposed to the handover, including some of local inhabitants, most of whom are fishermen. Some Nigerian politicians also voiced their opposition to the handover last year.

The NDDSC militant group, whose members attacked a Cameroonian security patrol at the weekend, has warned of fresh attacks in Bakassi if the handover is not renegotiated.

NDDSC spokesman Ebi Dari told Reuters by telephone early on Thursday that another attack was being prepared, and confirmed later that his men were responsible for Thursday's attack.

"It is true our men came under intense gunfire from the Cameroon military, but only four of them were killed and two taken hostage. They also seized one of our speed boats and the arms that were inside," he said.

He said the group would continue to launch attacks in the area until Cameroon and Nigeria agreed to renegotiate the World Court ruling that recognised Cameroon's ownership of Bakassi without seeking the consent of the indigenous population.

Many of the Nigerian majority living in Bakassi say their ancestors lived in the area before a 1913 colonial era Anglo-German treaty on which the International Court of Justice, commonly known as the World Court, based its ruling.

Bakassi, which is known to have offshore oil, lies east of Nigeria's Niger Delta, where attacks by armed militant groups have cut output from the world's eighth-biggest oil producer by a fifth, helping push oil prices to record highs.