Two Italian oil workers who were abducted last week in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta region have been released, Nigerian and Italian officials announced Monday.
Lucio Moro and Luciano Passarin, both employees of the Italian construction group Impregilo who were taken hostage on Friday, “were released a short time ago,” an Italian foreign ministry spokesman told AFP in Rome.
In Nigeria, a member of the Niger Delta Peace Forum, a group working with the Nigerian Army to demilitarize the region, said the two Italians had been handed over to his group early Monday evening.
Impregilo confirmed the release of the men.
“We know they’ve been released but that’s the only thing we know for the moment,” a company spokesman told AFP by telephone.
A diplomatic source in Nigeria said Moro and Passarin were freed on a road outside Port Harcourt, the nation’s oil capital.
The men were abducted last Friday after gunmen stormed into the Impregilo offices, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Port Harcourt.
The kidnappings led to a call from the Italian foreign ministry to all Italian companies operating in the Niger Delta to withdraw expatriate staff.
Two other Italians working for Italian oil giant Agip abducted on December 7 are still being held by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
Though no group has claimed responsibility for the most recent abductions, MEND had warned that it would retaliate against Agip and local state authorities after a kidnapped Lebanese national escaped.