Nigeria's main armed group MEND announced early Thursday it had carried out two attacks on the army and again advised oil groups operating in the southern Niger Delta to evacuate their staff before the "arrival of an imminent hurricane."
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta had said in a statement Wednesday: "Oil companies operating in the region are advised to evacuate their staff within the next 24 hours to avoid them being part of the statistics of an emerging civil war."
MEND said the Nigerian military Wednesday morning launched attacks on two of its camps in Delta State.
In a statement Thursday the group claimed to have carried out two attacks overnight on bases of the police and army operating in the Niger Delta. It gave no details of victims.
It said MEND commandos had "launched pre-emptive simultaneous attacks on two military Joint Task Force marine bases in Delta state in response to a planned punitive invasion on some protesting oil communities.
"As we begin stripping the oil industry naked of an unreliable cover, oil workers are advised to don the cloak of common sense and evacuate all oil facilities in the Niger Delta before the arrival of an imminent hurricane."
The group gave them until midnight Saturday to get out, after the earlier 24-hour ultimatum.
PHOTO CAPTION
File photo shows a separatist rebel in the Niger Delta.
AFP