At least 48 die when oil team attacked in Nigeria

An attack on a Nigerian oil exploration team by Boko Haram Islamist militants killed at least 48 people, hospital and military officials in the northeast city of Maiduguri said.

Those who died in the Tuesday attack include 18 soldiers, 15 local vigilantes, five geologists from the University of Maiduguri, four drivers working for the state oil company and six others, said medical and military officials at the university’s hospital who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to comment. Four additional geologists were reported as missing on Thursday.

Emmanuel-Kachikwu, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum, told reporters Thursday that “the number of people who have been identified as dead are still being collated.” Sani Usman, the spokesman for the Nigerian military, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Africa’s top oil producer is trying to expand exploration in areas outside the restive Niger River delta in the south where militant attacks on pipelines cut output to an almost 30-year low last year. The exploration team hired by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., which was concluding geological surveys in parts of the Lake Chad basin, may resume work when “there is security clearance,” Mr. Kachikwu said.

Boko Haram, which is opposed to Western education, has waged a campaign of violence since 2009 to impose its extremist version of Islamic law on Nigeria. The West African country is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.