afrol News, 15 July - Three Cameroonian soldiers were attacked and wounded by armed men in the oil rich Bakassi peninsular near Nigerina border, hospital officials have said.

The soldiers told hospital authorities in Douala that Sunday's attack took place at Munya, close to where armed men killed five Cameroon soldiers and a local government official in a raid last month.

"Armed men who came in a canoe hit the post where there were some 15 soldiers on duty, and ran away with huge amount of arms and ammunitions," one hospital official in Douala, said on Monday.

The official said three soldiers were injured in the exchange of gunfire and are currently receiving treatment at Bonanjo military hospital in Douala.

Cameroon authorities have blamed previous violence in the Bakassi peninsula, whose waters contain oil deposits, on rebels from Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, where armed militant groups often attack oil installations.

Recent attacks have brought back bitter memories of a decade-long territorial dispute that led to a series of bloody clashes between the West African neighbors in the 1990s.

Last month, suspected Nigerian pirates kidnapped five soldiers and a senior official in the Bakassi peninsula. Their mutilated and bullet-riddled bodies were later discovered buried in mangrove swamps.

In November 21 Cameroonian soldiers were killed on the Bakassi peninsula, which juts into the Gulf of Guinea, in an attack by unidentified armed men. They were found dead in the bush days later.

The Nigerian government agreed to hand back the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon in 2006, after a decades of clashes.

Nigeria's Niger Delta which has long suffered from violence and piracy, while attacks by criminals using fast launches have spread to Nigeria's western neighbour Benin and to oil-producing Equatorial Guinea has also posed a threat to United States which imports more than 15 percent of its oil from the region and plans to increase that share.

The waters off Bakassi are known to contain vast reserves of oil and gas and are also rich in fish. The peninsula lies just east of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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