LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A police spokesman in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta says gunmen have ambushed officers there, leaving 12 “missing.”

Bayelsa state police spokesman Alex Akhigbe said the attack happened Friday near Azuzama, where the officers were on an unspecified special assignment. Akhigbe said the officers’ boat broke down and the militants ambushed them in the state’s winding creeks.