Curfew in Nigerian oil city after gun battles

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Aug 17 (Reuters) Police imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Port Harcourt, Nigeria's main oil city, today after dozens of people were killed in gun battles.

Up to 40 people died in street fighting between troops and heavily armed gangsters yesterday, local newspapers reported, and the gunmen are widely expected to return to the city, which serves as the base for Africa's largest oil industry.

''I am afraid to go out far from my house,'' said Nse Jim, a motorcycle taxi driver.

''Soldiers are everywhere, but if you know these bad boys, they will start trouble again in two or three days.'' Police said movement would be restricted from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. until further notice. Shops were reopening and people were on the streets, but in smaller numbers than normal, and traffic was lighter than usual.

Port Harcourt is the biggest city in the oil-producing Niger Delta and oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell have offices there. It is also home to two of Nigeria's four oil refineries.

Oil companies told workers in the city to stay at home, but staffing at oilfields and export terminals in the world's eighth largest exporter was unaffected.

After six days of gun battles between rival gangs last week, troops launched dawn raids on Thursday using machineguns and rockets on suspected gang hideouts in the city.

Young men armed with assault rifles, dynamite and knives invaded five districts of the city, including the area around the state government headquarters, and troops fought them off with helicopter gunships.

RETURNING TO NORMAL Sagir Musa, spokesman for the military task force in the delta, said the situation was returning to normal.

''We are looking at hideouts of militants so, in the event of any crisis, the security forces are in a position to contain it in minimum time,'' he said.

''As the situation normalises we are tactically withdrawing but we will only withdraw completely when the situation is fully normalised.'' Violence surged in the vast wetlands region early last year when militants complaining of poverty and neglect blew up pipelines and kidnapped foreign workers. They demanded more regional control over Africa's largest oil industry.

The attacks forced thousands of foreign workers to leave the wetlands region, reducing crude output by at least a fifth and raising world oil prices.

The government of President Umaru Yar'Adua, which took office in May, has begun to address some of the militants' demands but the violence is spiralling out of control.

More than 200 people have been kidnapped in 18 months, mostly for ransom, and armed robberies are on the rise.

The army has blamed two rival militia leaders, Ateke Tom and Soboma George, for the latest fighting.

''What they want is some kind of money from government without working for it. And the Rivers state government has decided for now, even before now, not to give any such money,'' said Celestine Omehia, governor of Rivers state, which has Port Harcourt as its capital, earlier this week.

Human rights activists say that like many militias in the delta, these gangs were at various times sponsored by politicians who used them to rig elections or scare opponents.

REUTERS ARB PM1922