Dutchman Kidnapped From Shell Gas Site In Nigeria
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Yenagoa, Nigeria (AHN)-Gunmen abducted a Dutchman who was working on an unfinished Shell gas plant in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta on Thursday following a community protest. The incident is the latest in a series of kidnappings and attacks on oil facilities that have shut down a quarter of crude output from the world's eighth-biggest exporter since February. Hafiz Ringim, police commissioner of Bayelsa state where the plant is located, says, "It happened this morning ... Two persons have been arrested in connection with the incident." According to Reuters, a Shell spokesman in Lagos says the abducted man was employed by Westminster Dredging, a sub-contractor to the Nigerian arm of Shell working on the Gbaran gas gathering project. No further details were released. Nengi James, acting president of the Ijaw Youth Council which seeks to represent the delta's biggest ethnic group, says the attack, in which gunmen in two speedboats stormed a boathouse where the Dutchman was working and disarmed the police on guard, followed a protest by youths demanding jobs and investments for their community. The abduction of the Dutchman comes a day after gunmen tried to attack an offshore oil rig, also in Bayelsa state, and took captive a retired naval staff working as a security guard for Nigerian firm Conoil. According to the report, the impoverished delta, home to Africa's b |
