PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Gunmen have kidnapped a Scottish man working for an oil services firm in the southern Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt, military and diplomatic officials said on Friday.
The man was kidnapped late on Thursday in the main city in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa said.
A British High Commission spokeswoman in the capital Abuja confirmed the abduction.
Kidnappings for ransom are frequent in the Niger Delta. More than 200 hundred foreigners have been seized in the region since early 2006, most of whom have been released unharmed.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant group in the region, is still holding two Britons it said it had "rescued" in early October after pirates seized them from an oil supply vessel on Sept. 9.
MEND has said it is holding the two men as leverage for the release of its suspected leader, Henry Okah, who is on trial in the central city of Jos on treason and gun-running charges.
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