Four gunmen seized a Lebanese worker in Nigeria’s western delta oil city of Warri on Tuesday, the military and security sources said.
The armed men also snatched the Lebanese man’s car, security sources said, adding that a gun was recovered at the scene. The man was a financial controller at oil service company, Nigercat.
“A Lebanese was kidnapped by gunmen at the Enerhen junction this morning. We are waiting to get details of those responsible for the kidnap,” Brigadier-General Lawrence Ngubane, commander of the military task force in Warri, told Reuters.
The latest abduction takes to 15 the number of foreign workers being held by different militant groups in the Niger Delta, a vast wetlands region where all of Nigeria’s crude oil is produced.
More than 100 foreigners have been taken hostage in the Niger Delta since January, but most of them were freed after their employers paid ransoms.
Kidnappings and militant attacks have surged in Africa’s top oil producer since February 2006, cutting a third of Nigeria’s output and forcing thousands of expatriates to evacuate.