Nigeria accused of bombing villages, killing civilians

Nairobi/Abuja - Nigeria's main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), on Monday accused the government of indiscriminately bombing villages in the oil-producing Niger Delta as a flare-up in fighting continued. 'Sunday ... revealed the desperation of the Nigerian armed forces in a war it has no way of winning,' MEND Spokesman Jomo Gbomo said in an e-mailed statement. 'The world witnessed the indiscriminate use of missiles and bombs on several defenseless Ijaw communities in Delta state.' The militants and the government have been issuing claims and counter-claims about military victories, which are hard to verify due to travel restrictions in the Niger Delta. However, a spokesman for the Ijaw National Congress, which represents the Niger Delta's largest ethnic group, backed up MEND's statement and accused the military of killing over a thousand civilians. 'They ... bombard entire communities from the air, sea and land,' Victor Burubo, spokesman for the Ijaw National Congress, told the BBC. The Nigerian military denied the accusations. Hostilities between MEND and government troops have escalated since Wednesday, when clashes took broke out and an affiliate of the militant group seized the MV Spirit, a tanker chartered by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. The Nigerian military said it freed 13 of the hostages - four Nigerian and nine Filipino - on Friday when it attacked a camp belonging to General Tompolo, the leader of the MEND faction who took the hostages. However, MEND said that two hostages were killed in the crossfire and that it would hand the bodies over to the Red Cross. The released hostages said that the two dead men were Filipino. MEND added that General Tompolo had survived the attack and had relocated to another camp with his men. The militant group, which last week issued an ultimatum to oil companies, to leave the Niger Delta, on Sunday it said it had blown up two oil and gas pipelines. MEND and other groups operating in the Niger Delta say they are fighting for a better share of wealth from the oil-rich region for local residents, who say the oil industry has ruined their agriculture and fishing livelihoods. However, the government says the rebels are criminal gangs intent on stealing oil or making money through extortion. Expatriate workers are often kidnapped for ransom or for use as human shields. Attacks on oil facilities and workers have cut oil production in Nigeria, one of the world's largest crude oil exporters, by around 20 per cent since 2006.