Two car bombs struck the Nigerian oil city of Warri this morning during talks on an amnesty for former rebel fighters.
At least four state governors were among several hundred senior officials gathered in the Delta State government house in the southern city when the bombs went off.
The first car bomb exploded just as the governors entered the building, and the second one went off about 30 minutes later, a local government spokesman said.
The bombs sent large plumes of smoke into the air, but it was not immediately clear if there were casualties.
‘I think the intention is obvious: just to scuttle the talks and make it seem as if Warri in Delta State is not safe,’ the spokesman said.
The blasts took place after the main armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), threatened to detonate three devices near the venue.
MEND also threatened to resume attacks on the installations of oil companies in the Niger Delta, where the group has campaigned for a greater share of the oil wealth for the local population.
MEND said it had planted the explosives to debunk the assertion of Delta State Governor Emmanual Uduaghan that ‘MEND is a media creation’.
MEND in January called off a unilateral truce it announced in October following a government amnesty for former rebels in the ‘oil war’ zone.
It blamed the government for lack of progress in implementing the rehabilitation and retraining of former fighters.
In June, President Umaru Yar’Adua offered an amnesty which saw thousands surrender their arms. MEND described the state governors from the region as ’shameless and visionless stooges who are more concerned with looting their state treasuries’.
The oil-rich region has been rocked by more than three years of fighting by armed militants demanding a greater share of oil wealth for local communities.
Source: RTE online
You might also be interested in:
