Kidnappers who are holding five Chinese telecom workers in Nigeria’s southern oil-producing Niger Delta have asked for a ransom, the chairperson of the local government area where the abduction took place said on Monday.
Gunmen broke into the rented apartment where the Chinese workers were staying and forced them away at gunpoint on Friday. Abductions for ransom are common in the lawless delta, where poor residents live alongside Africa’s biggest oil industry.
“I have made contact with the kidnappers. They are asking for a ransom,” said Emeka Woke, chairperson of Emohua local government area in Rivers state.
“They’ve not placed a precise price. They want me to bring money for negotiation. I’ve said that is not acceptable but I’m trying to arrange a meeting with them,” he told Reuters by telephone from the area.
Woke said he had not had direct contact with the hostages and did not know exactly where they were being held. A Chinese team made up of embassy officials and staff from the company that employed the men is in the region helping with the search.
Hostages in the Niger Delta are usually kept for a few days in remote settlements accessible only by boat through mangrove-lined creeks, before being released unharmed after their employers or local authorities pay money.
However, one Nigerian and one Briton were killed last year in separate botched attempts by troops to free them.
Crime and militancy flourish in the delta, which provides all of Nigeria’s crude oil exports but where residents complain of neglect and marginalisation.
The poorly trained and equipped armed forces are unable to control the delta’s maze of waterways where abductions, attacks on oil facilities and theft of crude oil are common.
As well as the five Chinese hostages, three Italians and one Lebanese employed by Italian oil company Agip are being held captive in a different part of the delta by a rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).
The MEND, which says it is fighting for local control of oil assets and reparations for neglect and pollution, was responsible for a wave of attacks on the oil industry last February that shut down a fifth of Nigeria’s output capacity.
At least two men from the Nigerian security forces are also missing in the creeks of the delta after gunmen in speedboats attacked their patrol boat on Sunday. The MEND said it was not involved in that attack and details remain unclear.