Two Norwegians and two Ukrainians working on an oil supply vessel in Nigeria have been kidnapped, the Norwegian government and the ship operators said on Wednesday.
“Two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were kidnapped late on Tuesday while they were on a Norwegian offshore supply vessel”, operated by Trico Supply, foreign ministry spokesperson Frode Andersen told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
United States-owned Trico Supply confirmed the abductions, the latest in a series of foreign oil workers in Nigeria, and said no ransom demand had been made.
“We have had no contact with the kidnappers,” Trico Supply chairperson Bjoern Endresen told AFP, “but we are 110% certain it involves money.”
Western employees were singled out and taken from the ship while the 11 local crew members were unharmed, he said.
“We are doing everything we can in coordination with the Norwegian embassy in Nigeria and others to resolve the situation,” Endresen added.
A senior executive with a major oil group in Nigeria, who demanded anonymity, confirmed the incident but said he could not give any details.
“We learnt some Europeans aboard a foreign oil vessel have been kidnapped. The information is still sketchy,” he told AFP in Nigeria’s economic capital of Lagos.
Nigerian security agents said they were still verifying the abductions while navy spokesperson Obiora Medani told AFP: “There is no such report yet. But we shall find out.”
Major Saheed Hameed, spokesperson for Nigeria’s Joint Task Force, the security outfit protecting oil facilities and personnel in the restive Niger Delta, also said he could not immediately confirm the incident.
The latest kidnapping comes barely a week after four oil workers — a German and three Filipinos — were taken prisoner by militants in the troubled region.
The whereabouts of the men was still unknown on Wednesday after spending between five and six days in captivity.
On Thursday, a German employee of oil service firm Bilfinger and Berger was kidnapped along with his driver in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, while three Filipinos working on a multibillion-dollar liquefied gas project were abducted the following day at nearby Bonny Island, near Port Harcourt.
A previously unknown Movement for the Niger Delta People claimed responsibility for kidnapping the German, identified as Didone Shephard