Nigerian security forces based in a remote Niger Delta village still rape women and abuse rights, Amnesty International said on Sunday, a year after a raid there in which the rights group says troops killed 17 people.
A military force stormed Odioma village in Bayelsa state in February 2005, targeting militiamen suspected of stealing crude oil from pipelines and of killing 12 people in a feud over an oil-rich parcel of land.
The force commander said the raid killed only one person.
Amnesty said the troops used excessive force on members of the fishing community and set houses on fire by soaking clothes in petrol and throwing them into buildings during the raid.
It added in a statement: “Recent reports ... suggest that members of the security forces who are still based in Odioma are committing human rights violations, especially committing acts of violence against women including rape.”
Nigeria is the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter, and the delta produces the bulk of its crude.
Amnesty said nobody had yet been brought to justice one year after the Odioma raid and urged the state government to publish the report of an inquiry into the attack.
The outcome of another investigation by the Nigerian senate has also not been made public.
Tensions heightened in the impoverished fishing community when energy giant Royal Dutch Shell started developing an oilfield at Obioku, which is claimed by rival villages in the Odioma area.
Campaigners have criticized Nigerian security forces for using excessive force in previous raids of villages suspected of sheltering militiamen, especially in the southern delta, where thousands of troops have been deployed to guard oil facilities.
