Nigerian gunmen have abducted two or three Chinese oil workers in the southern delta state of Bayelsa, police said on Thursday.
The men were working for the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) when they were seized by the gunmen, who also looted the company’s office, police said.
The abduction brings to 32 the number of foreign workers being held by armed groups in the remote swamps of the Niger Delta, Africa’s oil heartland, where militancy is on the rise.
”There was an attack on a Chinese company CNPC this morning and two or three Chinese workers were abducted,” Bayelsa state police commissioner Hafiz Ringim told Reuters.
”The company’s accounts office was also burgled, but I can’t confirm how much money was taken away by the attackers,” Ringim said by telephone from the state capital, Yenagoa.
Another officer said one of the attackers was killed in a shoot-out with security forces, while others were injured. It was not clear if the attack was a case of robbery.
Militants and criminals seeking ransoms have kept up a series of attacks and kidnappings against foreign workers in the Niger Delta, a vast wetlands region that is home to all of Nigeria’s oil resources.
Thousands of foreign oil workers have left the delta in the past year as attacks and kidnappings have multiplied, and some industry executives see the situation descending further into anarchy as landmark Nigerian elections approach in April. — Reuters