Niger Delta rebels deny oil hostages to be released soon

AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 02 28 06

Nigerian separatist guerrillas on Monday rejected government claims they would soon begin releasing nine foreign oil workers held hostage in the Niger Delta for 11 days.

A spokesman for Delta State's Governor James Ibori, who has been tasked with negotiating the oilmen's release, said officials had won a promise that the men would be freed after promising the militants would face no military reprisals.

"I think they plan to release them in batches," Abel Oshevire said, adding that no concessions had been made to the kidnappers apart from the assurance that they would not face retaliation.

"We are very hopeful, and might have news of the first release within hours," he said. Delta State gave similar assurances last week.

But a statement from an email address used by the kidnappers, and from which photographs of the captives were sent last week, dismissed the claim.

"Recently we intimated the media of our willingness to release all low value hostages. The Delta State government today capitalized on this suggestion, claiming we had undertaken to release the hostages in batches," it said.

"This is a fraudulent claim. We have had no contact with the Ibori-led committee and have no intention of doing so. In this regard, the suggested release of any hostage has been suspended indefinitely."

The ethnic Ijaw separatist group seized the nine oilmen on February 18 during a series of armed attacks on security forces and oil facilities linked to the energy giant Shell's Forcados export terminal.

The attacks forced Shell to suspend production across the western Niger Delta, slashing ouput by 455,000 barrels per day and cutting exports from Africa's largest oil producer by 20 percent.

The hostages work for the Shell subcontractor Willbros, a US-owned engineering firm.

They are Cody Oswald, Russel Spell and Macon Hawkins from the United States; British security expert John Hudspith; Bardese Mohammed and Aly Shady of Egypt; Tony Santos of the Philippines and Thailand's Muado Somsak and Arak Suwana.

Hawkins will turn 69 on Wednesday and suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, but on Friday he told reporters invited to meet the kidnap gang in the delta creeks that he had received medication and was feeling well.

AFP 02 27 06

Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved

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