One of the armed militant groups in Bayelsa State which penultimate weekend seized ten oil workers from a vessel lying pipelines off the Atlantic coast of Sangana in the Brass Local Government Area of the state has raised alarm over the failing health of their captives.
The embattled expatriates, three Americans, four British, a South African, an Indian and a Nigerian were working for United States based Transcoastal Corporation contracted to a Nigerian oil drilling and servicing firm, Conoil and have since been in captivity.
In an online statement made available to Vanguard in Yenagoa titled, �Health of Hostages Deteriorating in Bayelsa,� the leader of the group, Joshua Maciver, vowed to deny the hostages any form of medical treatment, saying the Nigerian state has similarly denied its hero and Ijaw minority rights campaigner, Alhajhi Dokubo-Asari same.
The statement noted, �Dokubo Asari, the Ijaw Minority Rights Campaigner is on his sick bed, tortured, denied medical treatment and placed in solitary confinement, hence there will be no sympathy for any hostage in our custody as they will equally be denied any medical attention.�
The group which last week issued a three day ultimatum to the federal government to release Alhaji Dokubo-Asari failure of which they threatened to kill the oil workers however stated with emphasis that the health of the hostages has worsened insisting that it would make no effort to provide them any medical facility.
�Dokubo is facing life threatening conditions that may lead to his premature death, if he is killed, the hostages will be killed,� the statement warned.
It expressed sadness that help may be too late arriving the way of their leader to right the wrong, and insisted that the hostages must suffer the same treatment meted out to Dokubo by security agents and the Nigerian government.
It would be recalled that six expatriates� staff of Chevron kidnapped on May 1, 2007 by armed gunmen belonging to the dreaded Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) of the Atlantic coast of Koluama in the Southern Ijaw council area of Bayelsa State were last Saturday set free.