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NG News: Six kidnapped in Nigeria are Russians: ambassador

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's ambassador to Nigeria has confirmed that six people kidnapped on Sunday in the troubled southeast of the west African country are Russian nationals working for an aluminium company.

"Early this morning, gunmen burst into the compound on two minibuses near the ALSCON factory and kidnapped six factory employees, Russian citizens," Igor Melikhov, the ambassador, was quoted as saying by Interfax.

"A Nigerian driver was shot dead," he told fellow agency ITAR-TASS. "One can say the kidnapping was most probably carried out for a ransom."

The ambassador demanded that the Nigerian authorities "take urgent measures to obtain the liberation of the (Russian) citizens," he said.

Moscow-based Russian aluminium company RUSAL said in a statement that the attack was on a residential compound in Ikot Abasi where it recently took over the management of the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON).