Nigerian insurgents released four kidnapped foreign contractors on Monday, but immediately vowed to press home a series of violent attacks against the country’s key oil and gas industries.
The hostages — an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran — were handed over to the Bayelsa state government before dawn, its spokesperson, Welson Ekiyor, said by telephone from the oil-rich but restive Niger Delta.
The oilmen’s employers and home governments confirmed that the men had been released after being held for 19 days at secret locations in the delta swamps, and said they would get medical checks before flying home to their families.
The news came as a relief to workers in Africa’s largest oil industry, which is reeling from three weeks of violent attacks that have left 22 police and soldiers dead and cut exports by more than 8%.
But the militants nevertheless warned that the release of the hostages for ”humanitarian reasons” did not mark an end to the struggle by Niger Delta’s 14-million ethnic Ijaws for control over the region’s oil and gas resources.
”This release does not signify a ceasefire or softening of our position to destroy the oil export capability of the Nigerian government,” said the group in a statement from an e-mail account used by the hostage takers.
”We repeat our warning to expatriates in the oil industry as they may not be as fortunate as these four individuals. Leave our land while you can,” it said. ”We will shortly carry out greatly significant attacks aimed at ensuring our February target of a 30% reduction in Nigeria’s export capacity.”
On January 11, a heavily armed group riding speed boats boarded the Liberty Service — an oil industry supply vessel working under contract for energy giant Shell — and captured four crew members.
Three of the hostages were employees of Tidewater, a Louisiana-based oil services firm: the boat’s 61-year-old United States skipper, Patrick Landry, and engineers Harry Ebanks (54), from Honduras, and Milko Yordanor Nitchev (56), from Bulgaria.
The kidnapped Briton was Nigel Watson-Clark, a former paratrooper employed by the British company Ecodrill as a security expert.
”All of the workers will undergo medical examinations before repatriation to their homes and families,” said a statement from Tidewater.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and the US embassy in Nigeria thanked the Nigerian government for helping to secure the release.
The kidnappers had demanded that the Nigerian government release two prominent Ijaw leaders from jail and that Shell pay $1,5-billion in compensation to villages polluted by oil spills. These demands were not met and officials denied that a ransom had been paid.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil exporter, producing 2,6-million barrels of crude per day, and the crisis in the delta has combined with fears of renewed instability in the Middle East to push prices towards historic highs.
On the same day as the hostages were taken, militants blew up Shell’s Trans-Ramos pipeline. Four days later, they stormed the firm’s Benisede oil flow station, killed 14 soldiers and two oilmen and burned down buildings.
Shell slashed production by 221 000 barrels per day and warned tankers loading at its Forcados export terminal to expect delays of up to two weeks.
Then, on January 24, gunmen wearing camouflage fatigues and armed with AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles stormed an office and workshop complex run by the Italian oil firm ENI in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt.
The gang gunned down eight police officers and a company accountant before escaping on speed boats with a large haul of cash.
Two days ago, in almost identical attack, gunmen scared off police guarding the South Korean engineering company Daewoo’s oil-services centre outside Port Harcourt and stole $307 000 in cash.
It is not clear if the robberies are linked to the separatists’ political struggle, but the attacks bore all the hallmarks of Ijaw militant operations.
The violence is likely to be one of the items on the agenda at this week’s meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. On Monday, Nigeria’s light sweet crude was up 51 cents to $68,27 a barrel in New York. — Sapa-AFP