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Rebels claim destruction of Nigerian oil pipeline

Militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta patrol the volatile oil rich creeks of the Niger delta in Nigeria on Thursday. PHOTO: EPA

Nigeria’s main armed militant group said yesterday it had destroyed a major pipeline run by Royal Dutch Shell in the sixth such attack in the past week as it vowed to paralyze the key oil sector.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main group fighting for a greater share of southern Nigeria’s oil wealth for local people, said the attack took place on Friday on a “major pipeline” in Rivers State.

It said the pipeline was located at Buguma Front in the Asari Toru region and was the latest target of the “oil war” it launched on Sunday and has nicknamed “Hurricane Barbarossa.”

“The military and the government of Nigeria whose unprovoked attack on our position prompted this oil war are no match for a guerrilla insurgency of this kind,” it said.

MEND yesterday vowed to “continue to nibble every day at the oil infrastructure in Nigeria until the oil exports reach zero.”

Earlier last week, Shell confirmed the first attack on its Alakiri flow station and a second on the Greater Port Harcourt Swamp Line, both on Monday.

As the week went on it became more tight-lipped, neither confirming or denying claims of attacks on its Orubiri flow station, Rumuekpe pipeline and another pipeline at the Elem-Kalabari Cawthorne Channel axis in Rivers state.

Chevron meanwhile has confirmed two “shooting incidents” near its facilities while saying it has no reason to believe it was specifically targeted in either attack. MEND, which has cut Nigeria’s oil output by more than one quarter since it first emerged in 2006, on Sunday declared “war” on the oil industry, in what it said was a response to an attack by the Nigerian army on its positions. It has threatened to spread its raids to neighboring states.

On Wednesday, in a rare daylight attack, MEND said it had blown up a major pipeline, which it said it believed belongs to Shell and to Agip of Italy.

One of the main grouses of MEND is that the oil wealth of Nigeria, one of Africa’s top petroleum exporters, is basically enjoyed by the federal government and only a fraction of it trickles down to the locals.

It also accuses oil companies of damaging the environment.

MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo claimed yesterday to have grassroots support.

“The impoverished and neglected inhabitants of oil producing communities consider our actions to these structures as good riddance to bad rubbish,” he said.

“Oil exploration has brought only pain to them by way of environmental damage [farmlands, fishing and wild life sanctuaries], harassment from the military and rape of under-aged girls by soldiers, extra-judicial killings of young men and development and wealth to other parts of the country at their detriment,” Gbomo said.
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