Belgian man killed in Nigeria's oil delta

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 28 (Reuters) A Belgian man working for a building materials company has been murdered in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, police said today, while in another city one man was killed in a street gunfight.

The Belgian died of gunshot wounds last evening in Warri, in the western delta, after two gunmen ambushed him. Police arrested his Nigerian girlfriend and driver on suspicion of hiring the killers so they could keep the victim's property.

In Port Harcourt, the main city in the eastern delta, a gunbattle broke out between police and members of a well-known local militia on Sunday afternoon in the densely populated old part of town.

Police said one person was killed and several injured in the fighting near the waterfront, which started when the militia men stormed the neighbourhood to free one of their leaders whom they thought had been arrested.

Officers said the man, who escaped from jail in 2005 during a major jailbreak, had in fact not been detained and his whereabouts are unknown.

''We were in church when we heard shooting everywhere,'' said one resident, who did not wish to be named.

''We saw people running helter skelter. We can still hear gunshots now. We saw men in military uniform and police and some people running away,'' he said.

Crime and militancy are worsening in the Niger Delta, where 38 foreigners are being held hostage by different armed groups. A Dutch oil worker was among three people killed on January 16 in a suspected armed robbery in another part of the delta.

The vast wetlands region accounts for all oil production from Nigeria, the world's eighth-biggest exporter, and violence has surged in the past 12 months. A fifth of oil output has been shut down since a series of militant attacks last February.

The armed forces are unable to control the delta's maze of mangrove-lined creeks and major cities such as Port Harcourt and Warri have also suffered from unrest.

Poverty fuels crime and militancy in the delta's neglected towns and villages, where people living without electricity or clean water feel cheated out of the oil wealth being pumped from their lands.

Reuters SP DB2321