Anyone know if there is any aircrew involved?
Foreign oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria
Thursday May 11 23:56 AEST
At least two foreign oil workers, including one Italian, were kidnapped from a car under police escort in Nigeria's oil capital Port Harcourt on Thursday, a day after a US oil executive was shot dead in the same city.
A militant group waging a five-month-old campaign of attacks against the industry said it was not involved in the abduction, which police and oil industry sources attributed to a community dispute.
Industry sources said the foreigners were employees of Italian oil contractor Saipem and the Italian Foreign Ministry said they included at least one Italian national.
Industry sources originally said three foreigners were taken, but a US government security alert quoted a Saipem official as saying there were only two, the industry source said.
Police said one suspected kidnapper had been arrested.
"A group of expatriates were kidnapped in Port Harcourt city. They had mobile (armed) police escort, but the kidnappers got the mobile police out of the car and kidnapped the expatriates," an oil industry source said, asking not to be named because of his company's policy.
Rivers State Police Commissioner Samuel Agbetuyi said reports of the kidnapping were still sketchy. Between one and three expatriates were involved, but there were no reports of casualties, he said.
"One of those who did it has been arrested," he told Reuters by telephone.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), whose attacks against the world's eighth largest oil exporter have cut output by a quarter, told Reuters by email that they were not responsible.
Police and industry sources attributed it to a community problem. An oil industry source said talks were already under way with the community to secure their release.
Kidnapping is a fairly common method used by impoverished villages in the lawless delta, suffering neglect from their own government, to extract benefits or cash from oil companies.
On Wednesday a gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a U.S. citizen working for Texan oil services company Baker Hughes in an apparently planned assassination. Diplomatic and oil industry sources said the killing was probably an isolated incident related to a work dispute.
Port Harcourt is the largest city in the Niger Delta, which pumps all of Nigeria's oil, and several multinationals have major offices there, including Royal Dutch Shell and Agip.
The city suffers from sporadic outbreaks of bloody gang violence and turf wars between rival ethnic groups, and there have been several deadly armed robberies recently.
The kidnapping and killing add to a rising trend of violent crime and communal unrest in the vast wetlands region.
Many delta inhabitants feel cheated out of the riches being pumped from their tribal lands. Neglect and rampant corruption have eroded trust in government, while communal rivalries and abuses by the military have fuelled the rise of well-armed community militias.
They have taken advantage of the absence of law and order to engage in large-scale theft of crude oil, extortion, blackmail and kidnapping against oil companies, which rely on ill-equipped and poorly trained police and military to protect them.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=99967