N’Delta: 1 Dead as Militants Kidnap Oil Vessel Crew
From Ahamefula Ogbu in Port Harcourt with agency reports, 01.18.2009
One person was killed when assailants kidnapped the crew of an oil-industry vessel in Nigeria's restive Niger Delta region, a security official said Sunday.
But militants claimed the Nigerian military botched a mission to rescue two British oil workers held hostage for months.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said in an e-mail Sunday that the British hostages were not in a village raided overnight by the military. The group said it separated the pair and moved them deeper into the region's vast network of creeks and mangrove swamps.
The military had no comment on any rescue operation.
The British hostages were among 27 oil workers kidnapped from a vessel on September 9, 2008. The other hostages were later released.
In the other incident, unidentified gunmen attacked boats near a crude-oil loading installation late Saturday, a private security official said. He said the gunmen had tried to board an oil tanker but failed and then attacked a smaller service vessel where one person was killed.
He spoke on condition of anonymity due to company prohibitions on dealings with the media.
Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, military spokesman, confirmed the attack, saying the entire Nigerian crew of one boat had been taken hostage.
MEND said one of its "affiliates" launched the attack to press the message that the military could not protect the oil industry.
The militants are behind nearly three years of rising violence in the southern Niger Delta, where over 200 foreign workers had been kidnapped. The hostages were normally released after a ransom was paid.
The militants said their deeply impoverished area had not benefited from five decades of oil production and wanted more federally held oil funds to be sent to the southern oil states.
The government acknowledges the grievances of many in the Niger Delta, but denounces the militants as criminals who use the struggle as a cover to make money by stealing crude oil and selling it overseas.
Corrupt government officials, however, also siphon off and sell oil and many state-level politicians are linked to the militants and other armed gangs.
Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer, but attacks on the industry's infrastructure have reduced production by almost a quarter. It is routinely ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
