Militants holding nine foreign oil-worker hostages called Tuesday for independent negotiators to mediate among the hostage-takers and a Nigerian federal government they deem illegitimate.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said there have been no negotiations so far for the liberation of the hostages taken Saturday amid a rise in violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich south that has cut some 20 percent of crude production in Africa’s oil giant.
“The Nigerian government is fraudulent and we can never go into negotiations or dialogue with this fraudulent government without the involvement of a neutral third party,” the group’s spokesman said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
The group said it would welcome entreaties from the captives’ families.
In one assault in the swampy delta’s Forcados estuary, dozens of armed militants seized the nine foreigners after storming a barge belonging to the Houston-based oil services company Willbros, which was laying pipeline for Shell.
The hostages include three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino.
The militants who demand the release from prison of top ethnic Ijaw leaders and payment from Royal Dutch Shell for pollution they claim comes from Shell’s operations gave no reports Tuesday of any fresh attacks.
The militants launched attacks Monday on a pipeline and a boat in the swampy delta region, vowing to spread their campaign across the petroleum-rich south from where most of the African oil giant’s crude is pumped.
The latest violence did not cause further production cuts, but helped send oil prices higher on international markets.
There were no reported casualties in the attacks Monday on a Shell-oil operated oil pipeline switching station and a boat the militants claimed housed Nigerian military personnel. “Both were destroyed with explosives,” the militant group said in an e-mail statement.
Shell Spokeswoman Lisa Givert confirmed the oil-pipeline attack and said the houseboat was abandoned when the attackers blew it up.
It was unclear who owned the boat. Military officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The militants say they plan to widen their campaign across the vast region of swamps and creeks, where people remain deeply impoverished despite the great oil riches being pumped from beneath them.
“We are going to continue with the destruction of oil facilities in Delta State while concluding arrangements for our wider attacks on the entire region,” the group said.
The militants also warned they would kill President Olusegun Obasanjo if he entered the region. The government did not comment on the threat.
The West African nation is reeling from the weekend attacks in which militants blasted oil and gas pipelines and sabotaged a key oil loading terminal belonging to Shell. That and an earlier attack
has forced the company to halt the flow of about 455,000 barrels a day – about one-fifth of daily output.
Violence and sabotage of oil operations have been common in the oil-rich Niger Delta for the past 15 years amid demands by the region’s impoverished communities for a greater share of the oil revenue flowing from their land.
Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil exporter and the United States’ fifth-largest supplier, usually exporting 2.5 million barrels daily.
Hostage takings are also a common occurrence in the volatile delta, but most are released unharmed. Last month, militants held four foreigners for 19 days before releasing them unscathed.
The militants say their key aims are winning the release of the delta’s two most prominent leaders, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and former Gov. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
Dokubo-Asari, who waged a struggle for autonomy for 8 million Ijaws that dominate the Niger delta for years, was jailed on treason charges in September. Alamieyeseigha was arrested recently in Nigeria after fleeing Britain on money laundering charges.
Militants are also demanding Shell pay local communities US$1.5 billion (�1.25 billion) to compensate for environmental pollution, which Shell has rejected.