Daily Independent Online.
*
Monday,July 19, 2004.
Eight killed in
military action
By Odudu Okpongete,
Port Harcourt
and Chukwudi
Achife, Enugu
After a military action on Tuesday morning
at Amadi-Ama area in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, no fewer than eight persons,
mostly teenagers lay dead and two soldiers seriously injured.
Also, combat-ready troops on Thursday took
over Okrika Island in a move by the state government to flush out militants
from the area. Soldiers had earlier taken over Buguma in similar efforts last
May to dislodge another militia leader, Asari Dokubo.
The Nigerian Army, however, maintained that
last month’s raid in the Amadi Ama community in Rivers State during which
over 40 suspected cultists were arrested, was not an invasion by the Army.
The move against Okrika Island came just as
the militia leader that had controlled the area, Mr. Ateke Tom, surrendered
arms to monarchs in Okrika and fled to an unknown destination.
The Army Public Relations Officer at the
Bori Camp Barrack, Captain Onyema Kanu, confirmed this on Saturday, saying the
operation led to the recovery of arms, including six automatic rifles.
The officer also denied claims that the
arms recovered last week from a prominent militia leader in the state were bought
from soldiers but he gave no clues as to how the arms got into the hands of the
militiamen
The state Information Commissioner, Mr.
Magnus Abe, had said last Wednesday that the arms recovered from the leader of
the militia had the inscriptions of the military on them.
More details emerged at the weekend that
soldiers were not just called in to help mop-up arms in the area.
