Nigerian militants abduct Koreans in gas plant raid
By Austin Ekeinde
PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) – Armed militants
kidnapped five Koreans in a bloody attack on a natural gas
plant operated by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria’s southern delta
on Wednesday, authorities and security sources said.
They also killed 10 men from the Nigerian security forces.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)
claimed responsibility and said the Koreans would be freed in
exchange for a jailed militia leader who is on trial for
treason and was denied bail by a Nigerian court on Tuesday.
The attack comes just three days after eight foreign oil
workers were released by a different group of kidnappers, and
is the latest sign of rising militancy across the oil heartland
of Africa’s top producer.
MEND, whose attacks have already forced the closure of a
quarter of Nigerian oil output since February, had previously
demanded the release of militia leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari as
one of several conditions for ending the violence.
“The government of Nigeria may be interested more in a
prisoner exchange rather than releasing the person whose
release we have demanded,” MEND said in an emailed statement.
The style of Wednesday’s attack was similar to MEND’s raids
in January and February, when dozens of militants armed with
assault rifles, dynamite and rockets overpowered troops, bombed
oil and gas facilities and abducted foreign workers.
“In the next few weeks our attacks will increase (in)
frequency with the destruction of several facilities of crucial
importance to the oil industry,” MEND said, advising workers to
leave the oil-producing wetlands region in southern Nigeria.
MEND, whose leadership is unknown, is pressing for more
local power over the Niger Delta’s oil resources and has said
it aims to bring the OPEC nation’s output to a complete halt.
Poverty, lawlessness, corruption and struggles for control
of a lucrative oil smuggling business fuel unrest in the delta.
EXPLORATION DEAL
Energy-hungry South Korea has increasing interests in
Nigeria, the world’s eighth largest oil exporter, and earlier
this year won exploration rights in return for billions of
dollars of investment in Nigerian infrastructure.
South Korea’s KBS TV showed the son of one of the kidnapped
workers wishing for his father’s return.
“I want Dad to come back so we can go fishing,” Park
Myong-il, son of Park Chang-am, said as his mother sitting next
to him burst into tears.
In Wednesday’s pre-dawn raid, MEND said it captured and
burned a houseboat used by army and police assigned to protect
Shell’s Cawthorne Channel natural gas plant, and an unknown
number of security forces were killed in a fierce firefight.
The militants then kidnapped the five Koreans, whom they
said had been taken to a MEND base where they were safe and
would not be harmed unless the base was attacked.
As the militants left the facility, they came under attack
from four Nigerian army boats. The militants said they sank one
of the boats, killing at least five of its six occupants, while
the other boats suffered an unknown number of casualties.
A security source said nine navy staff and a policeman were
killed. Military spokesmen confirmed four dead.
MEND said one of its fighters was killed and two injured.
In Seoul, a Foreign Ministry official said three of the
kidnapped South Koreans worked for Daewoo Engineering and
Construction Co. and the other two were with Korea Gas Corp..
The attack forced Shell to shut the natural gas production
plant, but had no impact on oil flows from the area, industry
sources said. The gas from Cawthorne Channel area is normally
sent to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas export plant at
Bonny.
Shell declined to give details of the impact of the attack,
but shipping sources said gas exports were normal.
(Additional reporting by Tom Ashby in Lagos, Estelle
Shirbon in Abuja, Jon Herskovitz and Park Sung-woo in Seoul)