Nigerian troops have left some of the Niger Delta oil communities they occupied last June following bloody clashes with militants, according to the region's main armed movement.
"We are happy to note that the military has vacated the Gbaramatu communities to allow the displaced people return home," the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in a statement late Thursday.
Dozens of soldiers and civilians died in June during the clashes between troops and the militants.
The withdrawal of troops from Gbaramatu, in southern Delta State, is one of MEND's key conditions for peace talks with the government.
"A compulsory prelude to talks is the withdrawal of the military Joint Task Forces from the Gbaramatu communities and the return of all the displaced persons back to their various homes," MEND had said in a statement last July 15 when it declared a 60-day ceasefire.
The ceasefire followed President Umaru Yar'Adua's declaration of an unconditional amnesty for all militants in the volatile region who laid down their arms.
The amnesty runs from August 6 to October 4.
In the latest statement, MEND said that it hoped that following the withdrawal of troops "government will go a step further by rebuilding the damaged homes or compensating those whose property was wantonly destroyed."
Before it declared the truce, the group said that it had launched an "oil war" against the government.
Violence in the southern region of the world's eight largest oil exporter has cut output by more than 30 percent over the past three-and-a-half years.
Apart from attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta, hundreds of oil workers — foreign and local — have been kidnapped.
The rebels launched their offensive in the swamps and creeks of oil-rich southern Nigeria in 2006, demanding that local people get a fairer share of the oil wealth.
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