Warri Tension was mounting on Wednesday in the Nigerian city of Warri as soldiers hunted for a heavily armed militia which has attacked oil facilities and kidnapped four foreign workers.
Boat crews and human rights activists said military forces had deployed in strength on the waterways of the Niger Delta south of the city, prompting fears that a bloody crackdown may spark a broader wave of violence in the restive region.
Nigeria is the world's sixth biggest oil exporter, producing 2.6 million barrels per day, and the delta crisis has global economic implications, pushing up crude prices and depressing stocks around the world.
Oil prices jumped more than $2 in New York on Tuesday, reaching their highest closing price since late September, and in Asia on Wednesday the light sweet crude produced in Nigeria was up a further 39 cents.
On Wall Street on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.58 per cent, mirroring similar falls on exchanges around the world.
The energy giant Shell, thus far the main target of militia attacks, has shut down production of 211,000 barrels per day in the western delta region.
In Warri, however, the more immediate concern is over the prospect of further violence and for the safety of the oil worker hostages -- an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran -- who have been missing for a week.
Joseph Evah, leader of the Izon (Ijaw) Monitoring Group, an ethnic rights association, said army and naval patrols were preventing access to the creeks of the western delta swamps between Warri and Bayelsa State.
"Soldiers are now moving en masse into the Niger Delta. We have been trying to persuade them to let us have access to the riverine areas, to see what is happening," he said, as military helicopters flew over the city.
Warri residents fear the latest surge in violence could lead to a return to the dark days of 2003, when clashes between soldiers and rival ethnic gangs in and around the city left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.
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