CAPTIVE AUDIENCE: Nigerian guerillas display oil hostage Macon Hawkins.
Resolve crisis, hostage urges
26Feb06
ABUJA: American oil hostage Macon Hawkins, 68, has appealed for the international community to help resolve the Niger delta crisis and secure his release.
The Texan said he and eight fellow captives were being well treated, but urged the US and UN to help develop the region. "Tell President Bush I want to go home," he said on a boat with heavily armed militants.
He is being held in mangroves west of the oil city of Warri by an armed ethnic group known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
MEND is demanding the release of two leaders, removal of federal troops from the Delta and control of the region's rich oil reserves.
It kidnapped the oil workers last Saturday from their pipe-laying barge in the oil-rich southern Niger delta during attacks on facilities around Shell's Forcados oil export terminal.
Mobs killed four people in three Nigerian cities on Friday, extending a week of tit-for-tat religious riots that have claimed 151 lives.
Unrest began in the mainly Muslim north and was followed by revenge attacks in the Christian south.
Violence broke out when a Muslim protest against Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed resulted in the death of 28 people, mostly Christians.
http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/c...55E950,00.html
Looking at the picture you can just imagine how terrifying it would be to be in that position.