Nine South Korean pipeline workers kidnapped in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region have been released, officials said.
The nine Koreans and one Nigerian kidnapped on Wednesday were freed on Friday with the help of an unarmed neighbourhood-watch group and no ransom was paid, Bayelsa state spokesperson Ekiyor Welson said in a statement.
The state governor, who’s also the Nigerian ruling party’s vice-presidential candidate in April elections, hailed the ”state vigilante outfit Bayelsa Volunteers” — an unarmed youth group that helps police — for aiding in the release.
Details weren’t released and the captors’ identities weren’t known.
More than 80 foreign oil workers were kidnapped last year amid an upsurge in violence across the oil-producing south that trimmed a quarter of the usual 2,5-million-barrel-per-day production in Africa’s largest crude producer. Two Italians and five Chinese workers taken recently are still in captivity.
Governor Goodluck Jonathan promised there would be no more kidnappings in his state, the statement said.
”The state governor once again gives assurance that the ugly incidence of hostage taking will not happen in the state again as government is putting in place measures to provide employment and empowerment for youths in the state,” the statement said.
Hostage takings are common in the Niger Delta region where most inhabitants live in squalor despite the vast mineral stores of their region. Captives are generally freed unharmed after a ransom is paid.
Nigeria’s federal government controls resources from the oil industry, apportioning it among the 36 states in Africa’s most populous nation.
Delta-region militant groups say they are fighting for greater control of petroleum revenues, while the government calls them thieves intent on gaining cash through kidnappings and selling black-market crude stolen from pipelines.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of crude and one of the top overseas suppliers of oil to the United States. — Sapa-AP