FOCUS-Up to 56 seen dead in Nigerian oil
region clashes
(Updates with new detail, quote paras 9,10)
By Dulue Mbachu
LAGOS, May 31 (Reuters) - Up to 56 people have died in ethnic clashes which
resumed on Sunday near the Nigerian oil town of Warri, witnesses said on Monday.
''Six more dead bodies were recovered today while 19 wounded persons were
evacuated to Warri,'' an oil company official said.
''Armed youths in several speed boats attacked Arunton village near Chevron's tank farm killing no less than 50 people,'' a
witness told Reuters earlier by phone from Warri.
The attack on the ethnic Itsekiri village, blamed on their Ijaw rivals, came on the second day in office of President Olusegun
Obasanjo who was sworn in on Saturday after 15 years of military rule in Africa's most populous country.
A Chevron spokesman in Lagos confirmed the attack had taken place near their facility but said the company's operations had not
been affected.
''The fighting didn't extend to the tank farm at all. Our operations, including exports, have not been affected at all,'' the
spokesman told Reuters in Lagos.
Other witnesses said dozens of buildings had been burned and scores of people wounded during the attack by the youths, said to
be armed with automatic weapons and communication equipment.
Industry sources said oil multinationals based in the area had used helicopters on Monday to help the evacuation of the wounded
from the scene, made inaccessible by the swampy terrain and the recent fighting.
People who escaped the fighting to Warri said some of the dead had been killed in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack on two
Ijaw villages in the early hours of Monday.
''Four people were killed when Sahar-ama and Okpela-ama were attacked and many people were injured,'' Lucky Ivase, who
said he escaped the fighting, told Reuters by phone from the oil town.
Frequent clashes between the neighbouring ethnic groups have claimed scores of lives since they were sparked by relocation of a
local council headquarters from an Ijaw to an Itsekiri area in early 1997.
Aggrieved ethnic Ijaw militants have disrupted oil operations and clashed with their rivals since then, demanding government
restoration of the council headquarters to their Ogbe-Ijoh settlement from the Itsekiri village of Ogidigben.
Tension is often high in Warri itself where fighting spread in the past. Many foreign oil multinationals have their bases in Warri
for operations to the west of the Niger Delta main oil region.
Residents said calm has so far prevailed in the town after the latest clashes.
The region has seen an upsurge of violent protests in recent years by impoverished ethnic minorities who feel deprived of a say in
government and the wealth produced on their land.
Oil exports, which account for over 90 percent of Nigeria's foreign earnings, have been mismanaged during a decade and half of
corrupt military rule, leaving the country with its worst economic and social crises since independence from Britain in 1960.
Nigeria has an export quota of 1.885 million barrels per day under latest OPEC output cuts.
Resolving the crisis in the region through dialogue with all interest groups is one of the main tasks Obasanjo has promised to
tackle speedily during his presidency.
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