Reuters) – Gunmen kidnapped two Germans near the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt on Friday, blowing their armoured vehicle off the road with dynamite and killing a soldier, security sources said.
The two employees of construction firm Julius Berger , Nigerian unit of Germany’s Bilfinger Berger , were seized at Emohua in Rivers state in the Niger Delta, which is notorious for kidnappings, a police spokeswoman said.
“The attackers threw dynamite at the bullet-proof jeep the two expats were in, which caused the vehicle to somersault,” a security contractor working in the oil industry said.
“They were taken away as they came out of the battered vehicle. One soldier was killed,” the contractor said.
Sascha Bamberger, a spokesman for Bilfinger Berger in Germany, confirmed that two German employees in Nigeria had gone missing but declined to provide further details.
The German foreign ministry said it was looking into reports that two of its nationals had been kidnapped and said that its embassy in the Nigerian capital Abuja had been alerted.
Rita Inoma-Abbey, a spokeswoman for the police in Rivers state, said the two expatriates were seized at around 7 am (0600 GMT). A spokesman for the military taskforce responsible for security in the state also confirmed the abductions.
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings in the delta, where foreign workers, local politicians and small business owners or their relatives are often held for ransom.
Unknown gunmen kidnapped two Lebanese men in June who were working for Setraco, a local engineering firm specialising in building roads and bridges in the nearby state of Bayelsa, and demanded a ransom for their release.
More than 200 foreigners have been seized in the Niger Delta since early 2006. Almost all have been released unharmed.
Militants who say they are fighting for greater local control of the region’s oil resources launched a campaign of violence against the oil industry in early 2006 that has shut a fifth of Nigerian output.
Several armed groups have since mushroomed in the region, taking advantage of the breakdown of law and order in the delta to extort hefty ransoms.