Soldiers raided a village in the Niger Delta, looking for a local gang that had been attacking civilians and stealing oil. The subsequent fighting left 14 dead, and several hundred civilians fled the area. Oil theft is growing, with 100,000 barrels a day being stolen by gangs that puncture pipelines carrying the crude, transfer the oil to trucks and then to small ships that sneak it out of Nigeria and sell it to brokers in nearby countries at a discount. Even so, with oil now at over $50 a barrel, the various gangs can realize several million dollars a day from these thefts.