NIGERIA: Nearly 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in ethnic warfare which has rocked the southern Nigerian oil city of Warri in the past week, the Nigerian Red Cross said yesterday.
The clashes between the Ijaw and Itsekiri groups are rooted in disputes over oil wealth and political power.
Corpses riddled with bullets could still be seen lying on the streets of Warri, two days after calm returned to the town following five days of violence.
"We have reason to believe there were very nearly 100 (deaths)," Nigerian Red Cross president Emmanuel Ijewere said. "We believe there were over 1,000 injured."
A Reuters reporter saw five bloated corpses along McIver Road, one of the worst hit by the warfare, in which rival militias attacked each other with assault rifles and machetes.
The clashes were the worst in the Niger Delta region since March, when an Ijaw revolt led to scores of deaths and forced oil multinationals to abandon 40 per cent of OPEC-member Nigeria's production.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer, and most of the oil is drilled in the southern Niger Delta.
It has been calm since Wednesday, when the leaders of the rival groups declared a ceasefire. Nigeria has ordered hundreds of armed police and soldiers into Warri.
Ijewere said a high level of mistrust was making it extremely difficult to care for the wounded in Warri's two hospitals, where patients of one ethnic group would often not accept treatment from hospital staff of another group.
"They were forcibly removed by their own people because there was a high level of mistrust," he said.
The Ijaws say political power is unfairly skewed in favour of the Itsekeris. They also want a greater share of the region's oil wealth.
Ijaw and Itsekiri leaders during the week warned that the government's plan to disarm militants was unlikely to succeed.
"It won't be easy . . . because all ethnic groups have arms," said local Itsekiri politician Misam Ukubeyenje. "You can't start disarmament unless there's a community solution to the crisis, a political solution."
Patterson Ogon of the Ijaw Youth Council agreed. "It may be very difficult for any arms to be withdrawn from the youths, both on the sides of the Ijaws and the Itsekiris," he said.
Oil company Royal Dutch Shell said it would only move back into its offices once it was assured that security had been fully restored.
"We have made it clear that we cannot risk the lives of our staff," Shell spokesman Frank Efeduma told journalists in Warri.