A Bulgarian worker kidnapped in Nigeria and held for 10 days before being freed on November 30 described his ordeal in an interview with the daily Trud published Wednesday.
“I spent 10 days between life and death,” engineer Emil Tsvetkov, 52, told the newspaper, speaking from the Bulgarian embassy in Lagos.
“My kidnappers forced me several times to tell my boss and my wife that if their demands were not met, I would be killed that same evening,” he added.
Bulgaria’s foreign ministry had refused to provide any details on the man’s identity or his employer in Nigeria.
Tsvetkov said his captors were “young men who did not even conceal their faces.”
“They were brutal criminals, they just wanted… a lot of money. It’s a common practice here,” he added.
Trud said a 1.4-million-dollar (1.1-million-euro) ransom had been paid in exchange for his release, although the foreign ministry has refused to comment on this.
Foreign workers have become a target for kidnappings in Nigeria’s main oil producing region. Two Bulgarian oil workers were kidnapped in Nigeria in January 2006 and July 2007 but later freed.