Renewed clashes kill 8

[Richard Akindele]

Lagos - At least eight people were killed and several injured after renewed clashes between security forces and outlawed groups in the southeastern Nigerian market town of Onitsha, said residents on Tuesday.

Fighting erupted on Monday after a joint patrol team of police and army attempted to dislodge the groups from the town.

Two weeks ago, governor Peter Obi of Anambra State banned the warring Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) from the town after several days of violence that left many dead and caused a jailbreak.

A resident Ada Egbunike said: "I counted eight bodies on the streets of Onitsha and the village of Okpoko."

Many people were killed

Egbunike said: "The fracas started when the soldiers tried to enforce the government ban that MASSOB and NARTO members should leave the town. The groups fought back and many people were killed."

Another resident, John Uko, said that he saw a corpse under a bridge. He said: "I also learned that several people have been treated for injuries in hospitals."

The police confirmed the clashes, but had no information on casualties.

State police spokesperson Fidelis Agbo said security agents had launched a manhunt for members of the two groups, especially MASSOB.

MASSOB seeks independence for the 40-million-strong Igbo community, Nigeria's third-largest ethnic group, accusing the rest of the west African country of neglect and marginalisation because of a brutal civil war that the region fought with federal forces between 1967 and 1970.

About one million people died during the conflict, most of them of hunger and disease.