NIGERIA said yesterday its troops fought with Cameroonian forces on a series of small disputed islands at the weekend and a senior officer said several people were killed on both sides.
A senior Nigerian military officer said Nigerian forces pushed back the Cameroonians who fired first in the area known as Bakassi peninsula on Saturday and fighting continued until Sunday afternoon.
A spokesman for the defence headquarters in Lagos confirmed that clashes took place on Saturday, but said the headquarters had yet to receive reports about details of casualties.
"There was a skirmish between Nigerian and Cameroonian troops in Bakassi for three to four hours on Saturday," said the spokesman, Col Godwin Ugbo. "The Cameroonians fired on our troops and they had no choice but to defend themselves."
Nigeria and Cameroon both claim the Bakassi peninsula in oil rich Gulf of Guinea and their dispute first led to clashes in 1994.
The senior Nigerian officer said several Cameroonian soldiers were killed and two were captured. On the Nigerian side, two soldiers and two civilians were killed and two soldiers and 11 civilians were wounded, he added.
"The Cameroonians have been pushed back away from the positions they previously occupied," the officer said. Nigerian troops seized heavy weapons and ammunition, including anti aircraft guns.
Fighting continued until four o'clock yesterday and we are consolidating our position in case of a counterattack," he said.
The local Nigerian military commander in the area visited the peninsula yesterday morning and was expected to brief the divisional command in Enugu, eastern Nigeria, later in the day, the officer said.
The area known as Bakassi peninsula consists of a series of islands about 20 sq miles in an area where Efik, the language of southeastern Nigeria, is widely spoken among the islanders, who are mainly impoverished fishermen.
Since the dispute developed into fighting in February 1994, Nigeria and Cameroon have stationed troops in the area separated by only a narrow creek.
The Nigerian troops occupied Atabong West while the Cameroonians were stationed on Atabong East, two small islands in the area.
Cameroon took its claim on the territory to the International Court of Justice at The Hague in March 1995. In December last year Nigeria filed its own claim, raising a preliminary objection to the case.
The Justice Minister and Attorney General, Mr Michael Agbamuche, told reporters in December that Nigeria lodged the objection on the grounds that there was an existing body, the Lake Chad Basin Commission through which disputes between the two nations ought to be resolved.