Three Croatian workers kidnapped in Nigeria

Posted 19 February 2007 @ 12:38 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AP) - Gunmen seized three Croatian workers in the latest kidnapping to hit Nigeria's unruly southern oil region, police said Monday. The men were snatched late Sunday in the region's main city of Port Harcourt, Rivers State police spokeswoman Irejua Barasua said. The men were from Croatia, according to a senior security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak to the media. Details about the workers' employer were not immediately available.

Scores of foreign workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta region since January in a dramatic spike of violence across the swampy southern area where Nigeria's crude is pumped.
Over a year of attacks on a vast maze of oil infrastructure and the workers servicing it have cut nearly a quarter of Nigeria's daily output, helping to send crude prices near historical highs in international markets.

Analysts and residents say politicians are arming thugs to intimidate opponents before April elections, helping fuel the weeks of violence across the Niger Delta. Hostage takers released an American oil worker late Saturday, police said Sunday. Despite the vast energy stores lying beneath their lands, most of the region's people are mired in deep poverty and abductions for ransom have become common.

Hostages are generally released unharmed, although casualties sometimes occur during gunbattles between the hostage-takers and the military forces that patrol the vast region of swamps and creeks. With the latest seizure, at least eight foreigners are known to be in captivity, including two Italians, a Lebanese, a Frenchman and an Iranian woman.