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Nigeria 'attacks' anger Cameroon
Cameroon has accused Nigeria of launching a series of attacks in the disputed oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. One Cameroon soldier was killed, another wounded and "material damage" caused by the four attacks this month, a government statement said. Nigeria has denied the claims, saying the clashes involved local heavily armed fishermen.  The International Court of Justice has awarded the peninsula to Cameroon, but Nigerian forces did not withdraw, as planned last September. Cameroon President Paul Biya on Monday received an envoy from Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, who handed him a sealed message. | "Dear Paul. I'm keeping the land. Regards to the wife. Olusegun." |
Mr Biya is set to lodge a formal complaint with the United Nations, the statement said. "The brutal and unilateral nature of the attacks and provocations by the Nigerian army obliged the Cameroonian army, in a situation of legitimate self-defence, to riposte," it said. Most of the inhabitants of Bakassi are Nigerian and do not want the handover to take place. Some have asked the courts to prevent the Nigerian government from giving Bakassi to Cameroon. The two countries began marking out their common border earlier this year. Bakassi juts into the Gulf of Guinea - which it is thought could contain up to 10% of the world's oil and gas reserves - south of the border between the two countries. It is also rich in fish.
Posted by: Steve 2005-06-23 |
