Apr 15, 2010

Ogoni: MOSOP Condemns Killing of Ogoni Youth by Shell Soldiers


Active ImageA young Ogoni man, Bariara Vurasi Lemon is killed in a shooting by a team of Soldiers attached as guards to Staff of the Shell Petroleum Development Company working at Oil Well 4 in B.Dere Community.

The below article published by The Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People :

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, receives with utmost bitterness the shooting and killing today of an Ogoni youth, Mr. Bariara Vurasi Lemon, by a team of Soldiers attached (as guards) to some Staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) working at Oil Well 4 in B.Dere Community.

MOSOP strongly condemns this latest killing which is one too many, and also expressed   worry over the persistent irresponsible and reckless attitudes consistently perpetrated by the company’s personels and their armed guards while carrying out operations and other activities in parts of Ogoni.

MOSOP received the sad reports that Mr. Bariara Vurasi Lemon, a School Certificate holder, aged, 20, was at noon today shot dead by the Soldiers who were hired by SPDC to protect its staff carrying out its Corking and Killing Operations on existing Oil Wells in Ogoni, particularly in Dere Communities ( Bomu Oil Field operated by Shell).

Mr. Bariara Lemon was among a group of community youths engaged at the project site by the SPDC workers and were given some food items to share to others. A minor disagreement on method of sharing the food packs among the youths themselves attracted the attention of the armed guards  (Soldiers) who swooped on the youths, tortured some of them while in an attempt to run away from the Soldiers’ brutality, Mr. Lemon was fell by the Soldiers’ bullet, as they  shot at the youths. Mr. Lemon’s corpse was immediately picked up and taken to Port Harcourt by the Soldiers.

MOSOP therefore, views the incident as callous and cruel and called on the government and other relevant authorities to ensure that the culprits do not go unpunished as experienced in several other cases.

She also calls on other rights organizations and the international community to rise against these actions that have become persistent developments in Ogoni, noting that she would ensure that justice prevails in this matter.