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Militants kidnap nine Korean oil workers in Nigeria
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
LAGOS
Petroleumworld.com 01 10 07Militants kidnapped nine South Korean oil workers overnight in the southern Nigerian oil state of Bayelsa, a government spokesman said Wednesday.
"The nine Korean workers were taken by the kidnappers from a Daewoo oil facility on the outskirts of Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa," Welson Ekiyor told AFP.
He said the platform was guarded by some 50 soldiers when the yet-to-be identified militant gang stormed the place and took the men hostage.
"This is one abduction too many. We as a government will do everything humanly possible to secure the release of the men and put a stop to the criminal activities of the militants," he said.
A Daewoo spokesperson in Seoul confirmed the abduction.
"Ten workers, including nine South Koreans and one Nigerian, were seized by an unidentified group of armed insurgents," she told AFP.
The employees of Daewoo Engineering and Construction were seized at 4:50 am Nigerian time, the company said.
The spokesperson said the company had set up an emergency taskforce to rescue them. "We have yet to locate them and find exactly who the kidnappers are."
The kidnapped workers were constructing pipelines in southern Nigeria.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest to hit oil-rich Nigeria in the past one year.
Niger Delta militants are still holding nine other foreign oil workers taken hostage from the restive region. They are five Chinese nationals who were abducted last Friday and three Italians and one Lebanese taken hostage since December 7.
The abduction of the Chinese was the first such attack this year.
The best known and most vocal of the armed separatist groups operating in the region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), has said it had nothing to do with the kidnapping of the Chinese.
However, MEND, which has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the Italian and Lebanese oil workers, on Sunday threatened to step up its attacks on oil installations unless its political demands were met.
The group is demanding the release of former Bayelsa State governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, jailed on corruption charges, as well as separatist leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and other detainees from the region.
The group also wants a larger share for southern Nigerians in oil revenues, along with compensation for communities affected by oil pollution.
Some 37 Nigerian troops and dozens of Nigerian oil workers were killed by the militants last year while more than 60 foreigners, mostly oil workers, were kidnapped.
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, which derives more than 95 percent of its
foreign exchange earnings from oil, lost more than half a million barrels a day last year due to unrest in the delta region.
AFP 10 0804 GMT 01 07
Copyright© 2001 Emballage Digest.All Rights Reserved.
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