Search still on for hostages

Ireju Barasua of Rivers State police said: “They have not yet been released. There is yet no news about them and we do not know their whereabouts.”

The three Filipinos, two Norwegians, two Ukranians, one German, one Belgian and one Moroccan were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Rivers and neighbouring Bayelsa states between August 3 and August 10.

A navy spokesperson, captain Obiora Medani, said: “I don’t have any information about the kidnapped oil workers. We don’t have our men in places, where they were kidnapped.”

52-year-old man kidnapped

In the latest incident, gunmen abducted a Belgian and a Moroccan on Thursday in an ambush in the oil city of Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State.

Port Harcourt was at the heart of Nigeria’s multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry, where many oil firms had their operational base.

The first of the latest series of kidnappings took place there on August 03 with the abduction of a 52-year-old German, Guido Schiffarth.

He was followed on August 04 by three Filipinos kidnapped on nearby Bonny island, and two Norwegians and two Ukrainians seized from a boat offshore on August 8.

One group, the previously unknown Movement for the Niger Delta People (MONDP), said it was holding Schiffarth against the release of two local leaders standing trial for corruption.

Environmental devastation

MONDP said he was being held to demand the release of two Niger Delta leaders, former Bayelsa State governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and regional warlord Mujahid Dokubo-Asari.

The two men were standing trial for corruption and treasonable felony in Abuja. No claims of responsibility had been made for the other nine foreigners.

Since the beginning of the year, separatist militants had stepped up their campaign for greater benefits from the oil proceeds from local communities and in protest against the resulting environmental devastation.

Since then, more than 35 expatriate oil workers had been abducted although all were released after spending days or weeks in captivity.

It was reported that Rivers State police boss Samuel Agbetuyi said that the frequent attacks on foreign oil workers could create a “negative image” for the country.

Nigeria, a nation of 130 million people, was the world’s sixth biggest crude exporter with a daily output of 2.6 million barrels, a quarter of which was lost to unrest.

A militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which had kidnapped people in the past, warned recently that it would carry out deadly attacks on the oil industry from Thursday.