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Foreign oil workers kidnapped
29/09/2005 18:23 - (SA)
Lagos - At least two foreign oil workers including a Briton were kidnapped overnight in the Nigerian port city of Warri, security officials said on Thursday.
The commander of a military taskforce set up to provide security for the oil industry said some of the kidnappers had been captured and had named the village where the men were being held.
"They claim they are in Andalajkake. We've sent a team to confirm this. If they are there they will be released," said brigadier general Elias Zamani. Andalajkake is a village in the mangrove swamps of Nigeria's Delta State, west of Warri.
Zamani identified the kidnapped workers as a Briton and an Irishman, but a police spokesperson said the second missing man was an American while a spokesperson for the oil company Shell said a Venezuelan had been grabbed but later released.
"The incident happened at Ogunu in Warri yesterday. A Briton and an American, in company of a lady, went to drink and they were abducted by a group of unidentified persons," said national police spokesperson Haz Iwendi.
An exchange of fire
"The police were alerted and they were pursued. There was an exchange of fire and in the process, one of the kidnappers was hit. His body was dropped along the road. The kidnappers fled with the expatriates. The military was alerted and one of them was arrested," he said.
The two men were said to work for the Pan Ocean Oil Corporation, which has a base in the city. Pan Ocean refused to comment. British and Venezuelan diplomats said the report was being investigated.
A local boat captain said the kidnappers were "Ijaw militants", members of one of the separatist ethnic militias operating in the Niger Delta.
On Wednesday the leader of the militant Ijaw Youth Council, Jonjon Oyinfie, warned that British oil workers might be targeted in revenge for Scotland Yard's arrest of governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa state who has been charged with money-laundering in London.
But Zamani said the captured kidnappers had said they had taken the men after a dispute over jobs at Pan Ocean. "We've not accepted that fully. We are continuing to question them," he added.
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