Five foreigners working for US oil company Exxon Mobil have been kidnapped and two Nigerians killed in an attack in the volatile Niger Delta region, an industry source said yesterday.
The five, whose nationalities were unknown, were seized late on Tuesday by armed men who attacked an oil installation at Eket, in the southern state of Akwa Ibom.
The source also said two Nigerian employees of Exxon were killed.
The assailants were not immediately identified and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
But the Niger Delta has seen a resurgence of violence by separatist militants seeking local control of the country's oil resources.
On Monday, approximately 70 men attacked a site belonging to the Royal Dutch Shell company in neighboring Rivers State. Military and company sources said 14 soldiers were killed and 25 workers were kidnapped.
Nine of the workers were freed on Tuesday, and authorities in the state were negotiating with the kidnappers to obtain the release of the 16 others.
Responsibility for that attack was claimed by the Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), a group of several separatist movements.
The JRC said in a statement published by several dailies that the attack was aimed at obtaining the immediate release of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, the imprisoned leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF).
In October last year Asari was charged in an Abuja Federal High Court with treason, illegal assembly and conspiracy.
The Niger Delta is home to Nigeria's multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry, but each of its inhabitants live on less than US$1 a day.
Nigeria, a country of 130 million people, is Africa's leading oil producer and the world's sixth biggest crude exporter with a normal daily output of 2.6 million barrels.
But attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta region have cut about a quarter of oil production since the start of the year and at least five Nigerian staff employed in the oil sector have been killed by unknown attackers.
Following an increase in the number of abductions in August, the Nigerian army launched a widespread manhunt for the kidnap gangs on the orders of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS