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By Ani Akpan

IKANG, Nigeria, June 12 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Nigerians have fled Cameroon's Bakassi peninsula fearing reprisals by the security forces after suspected Nigerian pirates kidnapped six people in the area this week.

The attackers captured a Cameroonian local government official and five soldiers on Monday after firing on their boat in the peninsula, which Nigeria handed back to Cameroon two years ago after a decades-long dispute.

Three other soldiers in the craft escaped the attack, including one who was seriously wounded.

Several hundred Nigerians had fled the peninsula since the incident and were sheltering in the town of Ikang, on the Nigerian side of the border, witnesses said.

"I let go three classroom blocks for temporary shelter and I have allotted 210 school-age refugees to classes so they can continue their education ... but I fear more will arrive," said Evogor Ememg, headmaster of Ikang primary school.

Some of those who fled said they had been chased out by Cameroonian gendarmes.

"The gendarmes came and ordered us to go, claiming that Nigeria attacked and killed their soldiers," said one of the returnees, Bright Zato. "They burnt a house in Misong fishing port and my business is suffering."

Cameroonian officials rejected suggestions that Nigerians were leaving because of harassment by their soldiers.

"They are just suspicious that our security forces may mount reprisals against them," said Aboko Patrick, mayor of the local town of Kombo Abedimo.

He said the authorities had sealed off the area and were searching for the kidnappers, whom many locals suspected were rebels from Nigeria's nearby oil-rich Niger Delta.

SURPRISE INFLUX

Nigerian officials said a five-year handover plan for the Bakassi peninsula, which involves the voluntary resettlement of Nigerian communities, was still on track but admitted they had been surprised by the latest influx.

"The ceding of Bakassi is going to plan ... (but) we never foresaw this. We thought there will be no stampede. We have not even completed the buildings for returnees," said Florence Ita Giwa, chairman of the Cross River state resettlement committee.

More than 20 Cameroonian soldiers were killed in Bakassi in November when gunmen travelling by speedboat attacked their post. Cameroon said its forces killed around 10 assailants, whom it suspected were members of a militant group from Nigeria.

Nigeria's oil heartland of the Niger Delta, which produces some two-thirds of the hydrocarbons from Africa's leading oil exporter, lies westwards from Bakassi, which is also known to contain offshore oil deposits.

Around 90 percent of the population in the Bakassi peninsula are Nigerian fishermen and their families. Nigeria handed the region back to Cameroon in 2006 in line with an International Court of Justice ruling.

Other Gulf of Guinea states have suffered pirate attacks, including oil-producing Equatorial Guinea and Benin.

The United States, which imports more than 15 percent of its oil needs from the Gulf of Guinea, says the region's nearly 2,000 nautical miles of coast are largely unobserved, uncontrolled and vulnerable to "terrorist groups, criminal gangs, or separatist militias". (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Tansa Musa in Yaounde; Writing by Daniel Flynn and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Caroline Drees)

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