GIRL CALLS KIDNAPPED OILMAN'S MOBILE
By Mark Smith - Daily Mirror (UK)
THE daughter of a British oil worker held hostage by gunmen in Nigeria was amazed when she got through to his mobile phone.
George McLean, 42, was kidnapped by armed militants six days ago along with workmates Paul Smith, Sandy Cruden and Graeme Buchan.
Frantic with worry, George's daughter Monique, 15, tried his number. She could hardly believe it when someone answered straight away.
Monique said: "A Nigerian man said 'Hello' and I said, 'Are you with the hostages?' He said 'Yes' and he put my dad on. Dad said 'Hello' and I said 'Dad, are you OK?'
"He said 'We are all OK and I'm trying my best.' I said, 'OK Dad, everything is happening here so don't worry and he said 'OK'.
"Then I said, 'Is it OK for me to phone you?' and he said, 'For a few seconds. Got to go, love you' and I said 'I love you' and that was it." Yesterday George's Nigerian wife Nancy, 32, told of the terrifying kidnap.
She runs Nancy's Bar in the Exxon Mobil workers' compound in Eket, where Tuesday's attack happened.
She said: "George had just come home from work and was in the bar downstairs having a drink.
"I was upstairs. Suddenly I heard shots and peeped through the window and saw people running out of the bar."
The 18 kidnappers, said to be from the Niger Delta Frontier Force, have demanded £21million ransom.
A spokesman for the captives' employers, Aberdeen-based Sparrows Offshore, said intensive efforts were being made to free the men.
The Foreign Office has ruled out paying a ransom.
George's friend Chuck Atkinson, 52, said: "He is ex-British Army and a survivor. I am confident he and the other guys will come out alive."