(Adds details, background throughout) By Austin Ekeinde PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead an 11-year-old Nigerian girl and abducted her 9-year-old brother as they walked to school in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt on Thursday, police said. Their father worked for Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> in Port Harcourt, the hub of Africa's top oil and gas industry, a company spokesman said. Violent crime has surged in the Niger Delta since militants, who claim to be fighting for a fairer share of the region's natural resources, launched a campaign of sabotage against the oil industry three years ago. The attackers shot the girl as she tried to prevent them from dragging her brother into a car in the Rumuokwuta area of central Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers state. "A red Honda car intercepted them on the way (to school). The gunmen came out of the vehicle and grabbed the boy," said Rita Inoma-Abbey, police spokeswoman for Rivers. "While the sister was struggling with them, she was shot. The gunmen went away with the boy. Passers-by rushed the girl to hospital but she died on the road." Foreign companies in sectors ranging from telecoms to construction, as well as the oil industry, have pulled out expatriate workers, hindering the completion of badly needed infrastructure projects such as new roads and electricity. The militants' tactics, which include kidnapping foreign oil workers and blowing up pipelines, have turned parts of the delta into a military zone as the security forces set up checkpoints and mount air and sea patrols to fight them. Criminal gangs have taken advantage of the breakdown in law and order, carrying out kidnappings for ransom, armed robberies and vehicle hijackings which have left the region's residents living in a state of permanent insecurity. Hundreds of foreign oil workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta over the past three years, most of them released unharmed after the payment of a ransom. But abductions have increasingly targeted Nigerians, making a mockery of the militants' claims to be fighting for the development of the region. Police said on Thursday that a catholic priest, kidnapped by gunmen at the weekend, had been released. The main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), has in the past tried to distance itself from some of what it says are "criminal" kidnappings, saying it would work to release hostages. But its fighters have regularly abducted oil workers themselves and the security forces say its camps in the delta's creeks harbour the gunmen responsible for rising crime. MEND is still holding two Britons seized more than four months ago. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://af.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by Nick Tattersall)
Nigerians displaced by religious clashes seek refuge at a displacement centre in the central city of Jos, November 30, 2008. Residents delivered more bodies to the main mosque in the city ...
