Sunday, March 04, 2007

Gunmen kill seven in Nigerian oil city: police

WHAT A GREAT ACRONYM ---- "MEND"


Fri Mar 2, 3:23 PM ET
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) - Seven people were shot dead Friday and 10 others were seriously wounded when gunmen opened fire in a crowded district of Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt, the police said.
The unidentified gunmen entered the city aboard two buses, and blocked a busy junction before shooting sporadically at passersby, Rivers State police chief Felix Ogbaudu told journalists.
The shooting happened in the Port Harcourt's crowded market district known as "Mile 1", which also houses government and business offices.
Eight of the wounded were women, Ogbaudu said. He said police had arrested one suspect for questioning and recovered the buses.
Ogbauda said the motive for the attack and the group behind it were not immediately known.
Port Harcourt is the capital of oil-rich Rivers State, where dozens of foreign oil workers have been kidnapped over the past year.
Militant groups carried out bomb attacks in the city last year.
One high-profile armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), earlier this year stormed a police station in the city and released one of their leaders, who was being detained for a traffic offence.

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