Three Americans and four Britons were among a group of oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria today, according to U.S. and U.K. government spokesmen.
The group also included a South African expatriate worker, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy, who declined to be identified, said by telephone from Abuja. A spokesman for the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth office in London, who also declined to be identified, confirmed the number of Britons seized.
The workers were abducted from a pipe-laying vessel off the coast of the Niger Delta near the Brass crude oil export terminal, the Reuters news agency said. As many as nine people may have been taken, Agence-France Press said, citing unidentified people.
Sabotage and kidnappings in the oil-rich delta region of Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer, have surged following last month's presidential elections.
