Villagers hacked to death in political clashes

DOZENS of villagers have been killed, many hacked to death, in three days of clashes between rival political factions battling for influence in an oil-rich area of the Niger Delta, activists and witnesses said on Tuesday.

Thousands of refugees fleeing the mayhem in Nembe town were still arriving on Tuesday in neighbouring communities in south-eastern Bayelsa state, after a weekend of violence. They included a woman who apparently escaped by swimming across a river after suffering gunshot wounds.

Dozens of homes and businesses were razed.

The fighting erupted on Saturday between members of the Tama Boys and Isoungufuro, rival gangs led by local politicians Nimi Barigha Amange and Lionel Jonathan.

Both men want to contest local August 10 elections under the banner of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

The clash apparently came in response to an earlier round of fighting between the two factions that disrupted July 5 party elections called to decide local candidates.

At least 20 people were killed in that outburst.

The latest bloodletting lasted nearly three days before subsiding on Sunday night, when Bayelsa police commissioner Udon Ekpoudon said squads of heavily-armed police were deployed to restore calm.

Commissioner Ekpoudon could not provide casualty figures, although witnesses and political activists who visited Nembe on Monday spoke of seeing more than 30 decaying bodies littering town streets.

Activists included Robert Azibaola, president of the Niger Delta Humanitarian and Environmental Rights Organisation. Other witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Both sides in the fighting accused the other of having curried the favour and financial backing of multinational oil companies that drill for crude nearby.

The oil firms have denied a role in political violence, which flares regularly in the delta as politicians grapple for control of government oil revenues and pay-offs by oil firms.

Despite the oil riches pumped from beneath Niger Delta marshes and rivers, it remains one of Nigeria's poorest areas.

Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest oil exporter.

The violence was not directly related to this month's all-women takeovers of Chevron Texaco installations in the delta.