It was a mix bag in the game of hostage taking in Rivers and Delta states as no fewer than 21 expatriates were abducted at different locations in the two states yesterday.
Militants raided the locations following which 11 expatriates from Daewoo and eight of mixed nationality from Saipem were abducted in Rivers State. An additional two expatriates were similarly kidnapped in Warri and Ughelli areas of Delta state yesterday.
The Daewoo workers, all of them Koreans working for Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at AfamVI power station under construction were said to have been stormed at 3.30am yesterday, the same time their colleagues on board a vessel Mystras belonging to Agip were also stormed.
However, those taken hostage by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) at Mistral platform, 50 nautical miles off Bonny Island, Rivers State were released at about 4pm to the government of Rivers State.
�There was nothing to the attack. The platform and vessel were attacked and rather than destroy these, hostages were taken. We do not need any more hostages and returned them�, Jomo replied to inquiries.
The Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu confirmed the raid on Okoloma-Afam where he said the militants stormed the yard and fired sporadically while at the same time detonating dynamites before taking the expatriates away.
He however refused to confirm that a soldier, a civilian and a policeman were killed in the raid but admitted that one policeman sustained gun shot wound from the militants.
Ogbaudu said the attackers came to the place around the early hours and when it was reported, his Divisional Police Officer in charge of the zone raced to the spot by which time the militants had taken the hostages away.
Till the time of filing this report, no group has claimed responsibility for the Afam attack while inquiries to Gbomo Jomo, the spokesperson of MEND yielded a denial of the group�s involvement in the attack.
The raid on the vessel FPSO Mystras, a joint venture vessel between one SBM and SAIPEM, an Italian servicing company for Agip was carried out almost the same time the Afam raid took place but after the expatriates were overpowered, they were kept aboard the vessel till 6am yesterday when they were eventually moved to a different location on a different boat.
Narrating their experiences, the released hostages said they were scared to death because of the level of arms and ammunition carried by their captors who constantly threatened to kill them.
Those released yesterday who were captured on board the vessel consist of a Briton, an Australian, Romanian, a Chilean, two Poles and two Croatians variously working for SBM, Seacor, GPS and SAIPEM.
They are Trofin Betro (Romanian), Danir Leka (Croatian), Wieslaw Miazarek (Polish), Hector Gomez (Chilean), Iber Marcin (Polish), Dean Stifanic (Croatian), Don Ford (Australian) and David Flounders (British).
Also in Warri yesterday, two unidentified expatriate workers was abducted by unidentified gunmen in Ughelli and Warri areas of Delta State.
The report said one of the two men was forcibly seized and whisked away by the suspected militants from a different location in the area, which is about 45 minutes drive from Warri.
The other was said to have been taken along Enerhen Road, in Uvwie Local Government Area, adjoining Warri.
May42007