Bayelsa: Gunmen abduct 4 Italian oil workers •Pirates abduct 4 sailors

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics, Bayelsa, Headlines, State News Monday, December 24th, 2012

FRESH abduction has occurred in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, as four Italian oil workers were kidnapped along Pennington River, Southern Ijaw Local Government of Bayelsa State, while as of the time of going to press, their whereabouts remain unknown.

The expatriates were returning from Eket, Akwa Ibom State, when the armed men accosted them in their speed boat along the waterways.

The incident was said to be generating tension among oil companies operating in the state.

Nigerian Tribune check revealed that the Italian oil workers may have been kidnapped for ransom.

This is coming barely four days after the kidnapped four Koreans and one Nigerian construction workers were released by some gunmen at Azikoro village, near Yenagoa.

Identities of the oil workers were not ascertained as of press time.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnap of the oil workers.

When contacted, the state Commissioner of Police, Kingsley Omire, confirmed the kidnap incident but could not give details of the incident.

Meanwhile, PIRATES attacked a supply vessel and kidnapped four sailors off the Niger Delta coast, the International Maritime Bureau said Monday.

“Pirates armed with guns attacked, boarded an offshore supply vessel and kidnapped four crew members,” the IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre said of the Sunday attack.

There were “no injuries to crew members and (the) vessel continued passage to a safe port,” it said.

The attack occurred some 40 nautical miles off of Nigeria’s Bayelsa State, the IMB said. It provided no further details on the nationality of the crew or the ship.

AFP news agency says such kidnappings occur regularly off Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region, with hostages typically released after payment of a ransom.

A 2009 amnesty deal led to a sharp drop in unrest in the region, but criminality remains widespread.

On December 17, four workers from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries and a Nigerian were abducted by armed men while working at a construction site in Bayelsa.

The five were freed unharmed on Friday night.

On the same day, well armed pirates stormed and ransacked an oil tanker off the Niger Delta and kidnapped five Indian crew members.

-Tribunewp_posts