Nigerian police freed a Ghanaian woman after a shootout with her kidnappers in the restive oil city of Port Harcourt, police said Tuesday.
“The Ghanaian woman is married to a Nigerian and was rescued from the boot of a car abandoned by the kidnappers after we engaged them in a shootout on Monday,” Rivers State police spokeswoman Rita Abbey told AFP.
She said the abductors were forced to flee and abandon the car because of the “superior fire power of the police”.
However Abbey said the kidnappers seized another woman, Rita Oparaocha, an employee of the state ministry of works and housing after snatching her car.
Local media said a police officer was injured and his rife taken away by the abductors during the shootout, but the spokeswoman refused to comment on the report.
“We are making efforts to track down the criminals and secure the release of the woman,” she said.
Port Harcourt, the capital of southern oil-rich Rivers State, has in recent months seen a series of kidnappings, mostly of workers in the oil industry.
Kidnapping for ransom has also recently spread across the vast west African country of 150 million people, but most hostages are released unharmed after a few days or weeks, often when a ransom is paid.