By Austin Ekeinde PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Militants freed 125 suspected criminals when they stormed a police complex in the oil capital Port Harcourt, Nigerian police said on Monday. Two bystanders were killed on Sunday in the fierce, four-hour gun battle between militants and security forces in the densely populated old part of the city during which the militants torched a police building and about 10 vehicles. "They freed 105 inmates from the criminal investigation department and 20 from the central police station," said police spokeswoman Ireju Barasua. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it deployed 50 fighters to free one of its leaders, Sobomabo George, who had been arrested by police earlier in the day for a minor traffic offence. The police estimated about 300 militants were involved in the attack, and said a man and a 10-year-old girl were killed by stray bullets. The MEND, which says it is fighting for the impoverished people of the delta to gain control of the region's oil wealth, was responsible for a wave of attacks last February that forced the closure of a fifth of Nigeria's oil production capacity. The group is holding three foreign oil workers hostage in the remote creeks of the delta, where anarchy is rising. A total of 38 foreign hostages are being held by different armed groups. The delta accounts for all oil production from Nigeria, the world's eighth biggest exporter. 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 descended into anarchy. 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. Violence surged in 2006, when about 120 foreign oil workers were kidnapped, and it has worsened since the start of 2007. A Belgian man working for a building materials company died of gunshot wounds on Saturday evening in Warri, in the western delta, after two gunmen ambushed him, police said on Sunday. Police arrested his Nigerian girlfriend and driver on suspicion they hired the killers so they could keep the victim's property.
