Turkey’s Merpa Company on Saturday disclosed the names of its two engineers kidnapped in Nigeria, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
The two Turkish engineers, whose names are Ilker Izci and Murat Orhan, were working in Nigeria for a project of Merpa, partner of Italian oil company AGIP, Merpa’s executives were quoted as saying.
Turkish Foreign Ministry and the Turkish embassy in the Nigerian capital of Abuja stepped in after news reports regarding the kidnapping of two Turkish engineers in the African country, according to Anatolia.
Turkish diplomatic sources said that the kidnapping occurred at a region where oil companies were densely located and these kinds of incidents are common.
The Kidnapping is not thought to be against Turkish citizens, said the sources, adding that the Turkish engineers are believed to have been kidnapped for ransom.
The sources said that the Turkish Foreign Ministry and relevant authorities are monitoring the issue closely.
Earlier on Saturday, Nigerian police said that unknown gunmen kidnapped two Turkish engineers from their car in Port Harcourt in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta.
So far, about 70 foreigners have been kidnapped in Nigeria’s oil producing Niger Delta this year.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and it is one of the
major oil exporters in the world with a daily crude oil output of 2.6 million barrels.
However, repeated occurrence of kidnapping has frightened thousands of foreign oil workers away since last year, forcing the oil production to reduce by nearly 25 percent.