Nigeria’s most prominent armed militant group Monday said it will keep two Italian oil workers it has taken hostage incommunicado until their eventual release, which is “a long way from now”.
“Without a doubt, the Italians will be held incommunicado until their eventual release which I assure you is a long way from now,” a spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an e-mail to AFP.
The two Italians working for Agip were abducted on December 7.
The MEND spokesman said that the escape of a Lebanese national, Imad Saliba, abducted along with the two Italians, and allegedly facilitated by Italian oil company Agip and the Bayelsa State government, was “a huge mistake”.
“Time will tell what our reaction will be. Be sure it will be drastic. They made a huge mistake,” MEND said in the statement.
Up until now, the two Italian hostages had been allowed to speak by telephone either with their families or with journalists.
Italian authorities called Friday on Italians working in Nigeria’s oil zone to leave after two technicians, Lucio Moro and Luciano Passarin, were abducted.
The two were seized when gunmen stormed into the offices of the construction firm Impregilo, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern Nigerian oil capital of Port Harcourt.
ANSA news agency in Rome said the Italian foreign ministry had urged “Italian companies operating in the Niger Delta to withdraw all expatriate staff.”
Armed militants also killed a Lebanese Friday in a separate incident.
None of the main militant groups has so far claimed responsibility for either of Friday’s incidents, but the MEND did warn it planned to retaliate against Agip and the Bayelsa State government after the escape of Imad Saliba, the Lebanese national the group was holding hostage.
“Agip and the Bayelsa State government will pay a hefty price for this slight,” the armed group threatened in an email message sent to AFP.
MEND has the highest profile among a number of groups operating in the Niger delta who are seeking to highlight alleged imbalances in the distribution of oil wealth in the region.
Since the beginning of this year, 57 foreigners have been kidnapped by separatist groups and armed gangs in southern Nigeria, almost as many as for the whole of 2006. Most of them have been released.