(AP) _ Kidnappers released one British and one Bulgarian hostage in Nigeria’s fractious southern oil region on Wednesday, while the young son of a local legislator was seized in a separate incident, officials said.
Gunmen snatched the two foreign workers July 8 from a barge on a river in the lawless region where the crude is pumped in Africa’s biggest producer, and the pair was handed over to Nigerian authorities on Wednesday, officials said.
The men, looking exhausted but otherwise not visibly harmed, could be seen at government offices in southern Rivers state. Britain and Bulgaria confirmed their release.
The state spokesman, Emma Okah, said no ransom had been paid for the pair’s freedom, and that Nigeria would no longer tolerate kidnappings. Nearly 200 foreigners have been abducted this year alone.
“This government will no longer fold its hands and watch criminals kidnap for their personal benefit,” said Okah. “All those in the state should be called to order.”
In a separate incident, kidnappers broke into the house of a legislator in a southern Nigerian oil state and snatched her adolescent son.
Rubie Benjamin’s 11-year-old son was kidnapped overnight as kidnappers smashed through the roof to enter her home, police said. The kidnappers were demanding the equivalent of US$150,000 (�109,000) for the boy’s safe return, police spokesman Iniobong Ibiokette said.
Benjamin is one of 24 state assembly members in the southern state of Bayelsa.
Anger in this region runs high among impoverished residents who have benefited little from four decades of oil production.
While foreign oil workers were the initial targets of militants pressing for the region to receive some benefit from oil production, criminal gangs quickly joined the practice and now prominent Nigerians and their families are also kidnapped, including small children and the elderly.
New President Umaru Yar’Adua has made a national priority of calming the restive region, where all of the crude in Africa’s biggest producer is pumped. Militant attacks have cut about one quarter of Nigeria’s normal 2.5 million barrels per day production, sending global prices soaring, since violence began rising in late 2005.