Nigerian separatist group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the kidnapping of five South Korean oil workers and offered to exchange them for the group’s jailed leader.
Mend said the raid was a response to a court decision Tuesday to deny bail to the Niger Delta’s best-known guerrilla leader, Mujahid Dokubo Asari.
“In response to the court of appeal judgement of Tuesday June 6 2006, on the continued detention of Asari, fighters of Mend attacked the premises of the Daewoo company, contractors to Shell,” Mend said in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse.
“In the raid on the Daewoo compound proper, the commander of the raiding party decided to take into custody five Koreans believed to be staff of Daewoo.
“They gave their names as: HJ Kwon, A Park, SB Kim, OK Kim and HD Kim,” it continued.
Mend later indicated it was prepared to release the hostages in exchange for the freeing of Asari, the leader of the illegal Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), who was arrested in September last year and is standing trial for treason.
“We are of the opinion that the government of Nigeria may be more interested in a prisoner exchange rather than releasing the persons whose release we have demanded,” it said in a statement sent to AFP.
“As long as the units holding these individuals do not come under attack, no harm will come to the prisoners. We do not kill those fortunate to be captured by our fighters.”
The attackers, armed with rocket launchers, approached the oil rig near Port Harcourt by boat and overpowered Nigerian soldiers who were guarding at the site.
It said several soldiers were killed in an initial fire fight, and six soldiers during a second clash.
Mend said the five hostages were in good health and had been taken to one of its bases.
But it warned Daewoo to close down its operations in the region “as a second attack will bring only death”.
The five hostages include three employees of South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering Construction and two employees of the Korea Gas Corp, Korea’s foreign ministry said, adding that one Nigerian worker was also abducted.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and the world’s sixth-biggest exporter, with an average of 2,6-million barrels a day, most of which is derived from the Niger Delta area.
The oil-rich region has, since the beginning of the year, been a theatre of violence against foreign oil companies and their employees, launched by armed separatists and local communities demanding a larger share in oil revenues and compensation for the destruction of their ecosystem by oil exploration.
Apart from the five South Koreans, 16 expatriates working for oil firms have been kidnapped since January. All have been released unharmed.
The violence has claimed the lives of two Nigerian workers and at least 25 soldiers or police officers so far this year. — AFP