An Independent National Electoral
Commission (Inec) spokesman blamed the violence on "armed thugs...
allegedly acting on behalf of some politicians".
Voting was suspended in most areas of
the oil-rich state, which has suffered from political unrest in the past.
A re-run was ordered after legal
disputes over elections in 2015.
Elections in the state are seen as a
battle for the control of Nigeria's largest oil wells.
Voters were choosing seats for the
state and national assemblies, but not the governor as the Supreme Court ruled
his election last March should stand.
Several other deaths were reported in
the polls, which have now been indefinitely suspended.
In a statement lamenting
the "deviant behaviour" of those involved in disrupting the polls,
Inec spokesman Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi described "fatalities, kidnappings,
[and] ballot snatching", among other offences, which forced the vote's
suspension.
Results in areas which had already
been declared would stand, he said.
Despite River state's huge resource
wealth, it remains poor and underdeveloped for the majority of the communities
who live there.
There is huge environmental pollution
in some parts of the state due to oil spills.
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