Gunmen in Nigeria’s volatile southern Niger Delta abducted five Chinese workers in the early hours of Friday in what appeared to be a kidnapping for ransom, authorities and security sources said. The Chinese embassy in Abuja said it was in contact with authorities in Rivers state, where the kidnapping took place, to try and secure the release of the men.

A Nigerian militant group said on Wednesday it had foiled a plan by Italian oil company Agip to free four foreign hostages who have been held in the creeks of the oil-producing Niger Delta since December 7. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said Agip had paid middlemen to try and get its four workers out.

The death of a British hostage in Nigeria’s oil-producing south in a shootout between kidnappers and troops raises the stakes for oil workers but is unlikely to change much for the industry. Abductions of oil workers are frequent in the lawless delta but this was the first time a foreign hostage has died.

Bad weather, no runway lighting and a poor decision by the crew caused the December crash of a Nigerian plane that killed 106 people, more than half of them children, investigators said. The DC9 broke into pieces and burst into flames on December 10 as it was trying to land at the international airport at Port Harcourt.

Militants in Nigeria’s oil heartland said on Thursday they had called off attacks on troops after two bloody gun battles and would fight only in response to actions by the military. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it had killed 17 soldiers in separate fire fights in the Niger Delta on Wednesday but would now hold back.