Photo: MEND

MEND militants with kidnapped foreign oil workers.

The Nigerian armed militant group MEND claimed Friday it was behind the killing of four marine policemen in Bayelsa State, President Goodluck Jonathan's home state in the Niger Delta region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement that Thursday's attack on a marine police checkpoint on a river in Bayelsa "was carried out by our fighters".

MEND, the main armed militant group in the southern oil-producing Nile Delta region, did not give further details.

Gunmen shot and killed the four policemen as they were patrolling waterways in Bayelsa, the state police spokesman Emokpae Eguavoen said.

But he said he was not formally aware of MEND's claim of responsibility.