Nigeria: September 17, 2003

Archives

Violence continues in Warri as police and soldiers try to break the power of gangster militias that have been using tribal tensions to expand their power. The gangs are opposed by local civic groups, often organized around church congregations, and merchants groups, organized around major markets. But the gangs have lots of teenage gunmen and the kids have a well deserved reputation for being reckless and ruthless. The army reinforcements, especially the additional machine-guns, has given the police enough firepower to face off against the gangs. Usually, after a few of the kid gunmen are shot down, the rest decide that it's time they got back to video games.