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Explosion At Oil Flow Station

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS
27 May 2008
Posted to the web 27 May 2008

By Ahamefula Ogbu
Port Harcourt
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) yesterday said that it
destroyed the Awoba flow station belonging to Shell Petroleum Development
Company (SPDC) where it claimed to have killed 11 soldiers.
But in a sharp reaction yesterday, Spokesman of Joint Task Force (JTF) in the
State, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa dismissed the MEND claim as "lies and pure
bunkum."It insisted that the flow station was not manned and none of its
personnel in the area was killed.
Sagir said there was an explosion in the facility and that it had nothing to do
with the claims of MEND whose claim he dismissed as arrant nonsense, saying
none of their men was in the area .
MEND through its official website in a statement issued by Gbomo Jomo claimed
that their demolition experts in the early hours of yesterday stormed the flow
station in Degema Local Government area of Rivers State and destroyed it
without resistance.
They further claimed that on their way back to base, they allegedly ran into a
patrol boat manned by JTF who opened fire on them.
They claimed to have flanked the JTF and returned fire where they killed all
the occupants of the boat and thereafter set it ablaze and freed the girls they
had conscripted for their pleasure.
"On Monday, May 26, 2008 at 0100 Hrs, backed by heavily armed fighters,
detonation engineers from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
(MEND) successfully sabotaged another major trunk pipeline at Awoba Flow
Station in Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State belonging to the Shell
Petroleum Development Company.
"Minutes after the sabotage, our fighters encountered a military gunboat which
opened fire blindly on the advance guard."
"We flanked them in a counter-attack and killed in close combat all the drunken
soldiers numbering eleven, collecting their weapons, ammunitions and bullet-
proof vests before using dynamite to sink the gunboat with its dead occupants."
"The two traumatized adolescent girls found in the company of the soldiers were
hurt, not from the skirmish, but from gang rape by the soldiers of the Nigerian
army. They were dropped off in the neighbouring village by our men who have
since returned safely to camp," he said.
"Today's attack is dedicated to the administration of Umaru Yar'Adua and
Goodluck Jonathan who have failed after one year in office to ensure peace,
security and reconciliation in the Niger Delta region", MEND claimed.
Contacted, spokesman for Shell, Mr. Precious Okolobo confirmed that there was
an attack on the facility based on which they did an overfly and discovered the
damage has leaked oil into the environment. He said in accordance with their
policy of ensuring secure environment, they are mobilizing all the needed
technical team to contain the leakage into the environment.

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