'I am very worried'
2008-09-11 09:16
Pretoria - A woman whose life partner is one of two South African divers who were kidnapped in the Niger Delta in Nigeria on Tuesday, says she believes "everything will be okay, but I am very worried".
Michelle Smit, 35, and Dan Laarman, 37, a former navy diver, have been together for 15 years.
Smit said she received a message from Laarman on Monday to say he had arrived safely in Port Harcourt in the delta.
"He actually let me know that they were taking a supplementary boat to the oil rig and that he would then not have a cellphone signal for a while.
"I was therefore not worried when I did not hear from him on Tuesday, as the cellphone signal is very patchy.
"That night, I received an e-mail from HydroDrive saying that they had been kidnapped."
Kidnap
Five Westerners and eight Nigerians were kidnapped as their boat was making its way along the Sombreiro River through swampland to the sea. Another South African, whose name is not yet known, was also abducted.
Robbers attacked the boat, the Blue Ocean, at about 14:30 on Tuesday. By Wednesday, it was still not clear if the kidnappers belonged to a political liberation movement or if they were criminals.
Laarman's mother Ingrid, of Kosmos at Hartbeespoort Dam, said her son had resigned from the navy seven years ago and had worked on several diving contracts in the delta and on the coast of Gabon since then.
"Before he left South Africa on Sunday, he was actually worried about the situation in the Niger Delta as there had been several kidnappings lately.
"They had not even reached the oil rig, and were caught on the river," she said.
50 South Africans divers in Niger Delta
More than 50 South African divers work in the delta, where they help with repairs to oil rigs and pipelines. Others are in the security industry.
Several work for HydroDive, a South African company that hires out about 150 divers on contract.
Last year, another diver from the company, Du Plooy Smith, was kidnapped along with five other foreigners and held for 18 days.
Shortly after their release, the company's operational manager was also kidnapped and held for about two months.
The delta's "oil field war" has been raging since 1990, when the first foreigners were kidnapped by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (Mend). Since then, the group and other criminal splinter groups have focused on kidnappings, which along with oil theft, have become a source of income.
Mend believes residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta don't benefit at all from the country's oil wealth.
The Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday released a statement confirming the kidnapping of the two men. South Africa's High Commissioner in Nigeria, Stix Sifingo, has been in contact with the Nigerian national security advisor in the country's presidency.