Live streams

Nigerian Militants Say Fighters Surrendered

The 19 nineteen oil and construction workers taken hostage by Niger Delta militants and freed last week sit together in Port Harcourt, 18 Nov 2010

TEXT SIZE - +

Last updated on: November 21, 2010 7:00 PM

Nigeria's main militant group said one of its commanders and 62 of his followers were not captured by the military, but rather turned themselves in for a promised cash reward.

The military had said it arrested the militants Friday in southern Nigeria's Rivers State. On Saturday, it paraded the men in front of the media at an air force base in the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt.

In a statement Monday, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) refuted the government's account of the arrests, saying its fighters "handed themselves over" with "no exchange of gunfire."

Nigerian authorities say the militants kidnapped 19 oil and construction workers in the Niger Delta region. The hostages, who were freed last week, included seven foreigners.

The group has threatened more attacks on oil facilities.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.

Featured Videos

Your JavaScript is turned off or you have an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.

Video

Boston Bomber Spent 6 Months in Russia’s Most Violent Republic

The news of the Boston Marathon bombings circled the globe, and resonated here in Dagestan, a majority Muslim republic in Russia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Last year, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of the bombings and a long-time Boston resident, returned to Dagestan, where he had lived for a year during his youth. Dagestan was the land of his maternal ancestors. But in the last two years, this republic of 3 million people has gained notoriety as the region with the highest level of political and religious violence in all of Russia. VOA's James Brooke reports from Makhachkala, Russia.