Four expatriates
and two Nigerians working for the
South Korean construction firm
Hyundai Heavy Industries Limited
were kidnapped Monday in
southern Nigeria, police said.
“Some armed men went to a
Korean company, Hyundai, located
in a forest by the Atlantic Ocean
beach, and kidnapped four
expatriates and two Nigerians,”
police spokesman Fidelis Odunna
told AFP.
A fisherman, Tare Kolugha, said he
witnessed the abductions as the
workers were travelling to their
workplace in southern Bayelsa
state.
“We were on the waters fishing
close to Odioma Creek when we
noticed two … boats with armed
men (who) shot into the air and
stopped the passenger boat
conveying the Hyundai workers to
their yard,” Kolugha told AFP.
Gangs have frequently abducted
expatriates working in the oil-
producing Niger Delta in ransom
kidnappings, but Nigerians from
wealthy families have increasingly
become their targets in recent
years.
A 2009 amnesty deal in the Niger
Delta led to a sharp drop in unrest
in the region, but criminality
remains widespread.
Late last month, two foreigners
who were identified by the local
media as Lebanese were
kidnapped at a work site in the
region.
And the 83-year-old mother of the
Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, was kidnapped
from her home in Delta state and
held captive for five days before
being freed on Friday.
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/12/six-hyundai-heavy-workers-kidnapped-in-bayelsa/