NIGERIA: Nine members of the militant Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) buried in Nigeria

Nine members of the militant Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) were buried on Saturday (September 2). The nine militants died on August 20 when troops attacked them as they were travelling in boats with a hostage they had just released from his kidnappers -- acting as go-betweens as militants sometimes do in the delta. The hostage, a Nigerian working for Shell, was also killed. The security forces expressed regret over the bloodbath, and they allowed the corpses of the nine militants to be displayed publicly at a morgue in the oil city of Warri on Saturday. From there, youths from their communities loaded the caskets into speedboats and fanned out into the creeks to bury the militants in their respective villages. In his speech Bello Oboko President of Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities whose military wing is the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), maintained that the struggle for which the nine men were killed will continue until it is achieved. MEND has struck fear into the industry with its sophisticated weaponry and tactics, and it has inspired admiration in many disgruntled youths in the delta. MEND has been at the lead of agitation for the control of oil resources in the oil rich Niger delta region of Nigeria whose communities are deprived and impoverished in the midst of wealth, without basic infrastructure amenities. In February MEND kidnapped foreign oil workers in attacks on the multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria Niger delta region. More than 18 kidnap cases and a number of attacks on oil pipelines are recorded in the region this year leading to the cut of Nigeria oil production output.

ITN Source | September 3, 2006

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