Gunmen kidnapped three foreign workers in two separate incidents in Nigeria’s oil-producing delta on Friday, authorities said.
Expatriate abductions have become an almost weekly occurrence this year in the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, and thousands have fled the Niger Delta since violence surged last year.
Attackers in three speed boats stormed the construction yard of German building contractor Bilfinger Berger in the region’s largest city, Port Harcourt, at dawn and abducted the company’s Dutch security manager after a three-hour gunfight, security sources said.
Hours later in the nearby city of Warri, unidentified gunmen took two foreign staff of Nigerian construction firm Setraco from their workplace. The hostages included a Lebanese national and possibly an Indian, a company source said.
After dozens of foreigners were abducted in the first two months of this year, there had been a lull this month and the last two foreign hostages — two Italians working for ENI unit Agip — were released unharmed on March 15.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), which held the Italians for more than three months, threatened last week to kidnap more hostages.
Army spokesperson Sagir Musa said he did not know where the kidnappers took the Dutch man but said the local community was helping troops with their search.
Militant attacks, invasions and kidnappings have forced oil companies to reduce Nigerian output by about 20% since February 2006.
Mend says it is fighting for regional autonomy in the oil-producing delta and other political ends, but the line between militancy and crime is blurred.
Landmark elections in Nigeria next month have also increased instability in the delta as the prospect of power changing hands rekindles long-standing communal conflicts.
The vast region of impoverished fishing villages on mangrove-lined creeks lined with multibillion-dollar oil facilities is awash with small arms.
Poverty and lack of basic public services due to government corruption lie at the root of violence in the delta, which accounts for all the crude produced in Nigeria. — Reuters