A Nigerian navy patrol has intercepted an attempted attack on an offshore oil facility in the Niger Delta. It is the latest in an ongoing battle which is said to have nearly halved the country’s vital oil production. On Monday, rebel fighters successfully put a major oil storage facility out of action. But in addition to the economic cost, Amnesty International says hundreds of civilians are being killed in the violence. Al Jazeera’s Tarek Bazley reports.

At the Delta of Niger River in Nigeria, where a vast proportion of planet’s oil is excavated, bomb attacks, abductions and murders form part of daily routine.

The documentary portrays the image of “development”, the way giant multinational petroleum companies would define it. Petroleum leaks in the River destroy flora and fauna, poison the food chain and consequently wipe out the 27 million indigenous people of the area - the Ijaws, the Ogoni and the Itsekiris. The inhabitants dare to ask the self-evident, they demand an end to it. As a response they are massively and brutally attacked by special forces of the army and the police, which are armed by the oil companies. The camera meets at the river militia of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta-MEND- and presents to the world for the first time shattering images of their speed boat patrols and of their heavy weaponry.
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