Three foreign workers, including one Croatian, and four Nigerians were abducted on Sunday in an attack by speedboats on an oil platform in the Niger Delta, confirmed representatives of the oil company Shell on Sunday, agencies report.
One Croatian, one Russian, and one British national, along with four Nigerians, were kidnapped after a three-hour gunfight at the oil field operated by Royal Dutch Shell, said Olav Ljosne, a spokesperson for Shell in Nigeria, as reported by AP.
“The next step is the evacuation of personnel and working on the release of the abducted,” Ljosne said. The Niger Delta is often a scene of violence as oil companies and local communities have been disputing for years over a larger share of the wealth generated from oil exploitation. Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa.
This is the sixth case of a Croatian worker being abducted in Nigeria in the last three years. The most recent was Jurica Ruić from Zadar, who was kidnapped on May 1 and released 30 days later. He was abducted by the militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). (H)
