Posted on 04/24/2004 8:28:12 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - A speedboat full of gunmen attacked a boat carrying oil workers in Nigeria's violence-wracked delta region, killing two Americans, the army said Saturday. A Nigerian army spokesman, Maj. Said Ahmed, said the workers died Friday evening in the Niger Delta, where the bulk of the country's oil is pumped. Ahmed did not identify the men or their employer, saying "details are still sketchy." However, U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco said two American contractors were missing, along with two Nigerian sailors and two civilian boatmen. A third American, a ChevronTexaco employee, was reported hospitalized in stable condition with gunshot wounds. The company had "no conclusive proof" yet that the two missing Americans were dead, ChevronTexaco spokesman Deji Haastrup said. He said the men were the target of an "unprovoked attack" at 5 p.m. Friday on the Benin River, south of the oil city of Warri. "It was very shocking and it took us by complete surprise," Haastrup said. The workers reportedly were inspecting ChevronTexaco oil and gas facilities at Dibi and Olero Creek - among dozens of installations abandoned by the company after an outbreak of ethnic violence in March 2003. The operation was in preparation to return to the sites, said another oil company, Sola Omole. In all, ChevronTexaco's idle installations would normally produce 140,000 barrels of oil a day. Militants from rival ethnic groups regularly attack oil facilities in the Niger Delta, trying to force companies to pay extortion money. While foreigners are rarely killed, hundreds of Nigerian civilians and combatants have died in the violence between Ijaw and Itsekiri militants. Ijaws and Itsekiris threatened to escalate hostilities this week following the slaying of 10 market vendors and children who were traveling by boat to their village. Ahmed, the military spokesman, said Itsekiri gunmen were believed responsible for that attack. Earlier this month, five Ijaw assailants carrying shotguns were killed by the navy while trying to storm an oil facility owned by Agip, a division of Italy's ENI SpA. --
Nope. They're all in the (oil-less) north. The coastal tribes involved in oil-stealing and aren't Muslim.
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