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Nigerian authorities say no progress in search for kidnapped oil workers
By Karl Malakunas
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 08 11 06
Nigerian authorities reported no progress Friday in the search for 10 foreign oil workers kidnapped over the past 11 days in the volatile southern Niger Delta region.
"They have not yet been released. There is yet no news about them and we do not know their whereabouts," Rivers State police command spokeswoman Ireju Barasua told AFP by telephone Friday morning.
The three Filipinos, two Norwegians, two Ukranians, one German, one Belgian and one Moroccan were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Rivers and neighbouring Bayelsa states between August 3 and August 10.
A navy spokesman, Captain Obiora Medani, also told AFP, "I do not have any information about the kidnapped oil workers. We do not have our men in places where they were kidnapped."
In the latest incident gunmen abducted a Belgian and a Moroccan Thursday in an ambush in the oil city of Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State.
Port Harcourt is at the heart of Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry where many oil firms have their operational base. The first of the latest series of kidnappings occurred there on August 3 with the abduction of a 52-year-old German, Guido Schiffarth.
He was followed on August 4 by three Filipinos kidnapped on nearby Bonny island, and two Norwegians and two Ukrainians seized from a boat offshore on August 8.
One group, the previously unknown Movement for the Niger Delta People (MONDP), said it was holding Schiffarth against the release of two local leaders standing trial for corruption.
No claims of responsibility have been made for the other nine foreigners.
ade/mb
AFP 11 1000 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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