Six gunmen wearing military fatigues seized a Nigerian staff member of the Italian oil company Agip on Monday in the Nigeria’s southern petroleum region, police said. The assailants grabbed the human resources manager for Agip, a subsidiary of Italian oil giant Eni SpA, as he drove to work, said Rivers state police spokesperson Irejua Barasua.
Nigerian troops raided several villages on the outskirts of the country’s main oil-industry centre of Port Harcourt in search of gunmen said to be responsible for a spate of hostage-takings targeting foreign oil workers, a military spokesperson said. Several arrests were made and illegal weapons recovered on Saturday.