Militants armed with guns and dynamite invaded an oil services base in Bayelsa state in Nigeria’s southern oil-producing Niger Delta on Wednesday and kidnapped nine South Korean workers and one Nigerian.
The gunmen came in six boats to the riverside base in the outskirts of Bayelsa state capital Yenagoa. They blew up part of an office building and the ground was littered with pieces of zinc roofing, electrical fittings and air conditioning units.
“The militants entered the facility armed with guns and dynamite before dawn,” said Han Sang-ho, a Daewoo employee at the site, speaking to South Korean TV network YTN.
“There was an exchange of gunshots and they broke in with dynamite,” Han said.
The security situation is worsening in the delta, which accounts for all oil production from OPEC member Nigeria, the world’s eighth-biggest exporter of crude. A fifth of Nigerian output capacity is shut down because of militant attacks.
The attack on the base operated by South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering and Construction came less than a week after five Chinese telecom workers were kidnapped for ransom in another area of the volatile delta.
Daewoo, which is working on a pipeline project in the area, confirmed that nine of its employees, all South Koreans, had been captured.
The men taken captive were in one section of the living quarters. There were 17 South Koreans in total at the facility.