NIGERIA: Delta militants release hostage photos, threaten more attacks

WARRI, 24 Feb 2006 (IRIN) – Armed militants holding nine foreign oil workers hostage in Nigeria’s troubled Niger Delta, on Friday released photos of the captives for the first time but denied entering into talks with the government over their release.

Photographs e-mailed to reporters showed the hostages, who have spent a week in captivity, sitting or standing around in the company of more than two dozen masked men clad in military fatigues and armed with automatic rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Close-ups showed the hostages looking well but unshaved.

“There have been reports that negotiations are ongoing towards the release of these individuals. This is absolutely untrue,” the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement sent with the pictures.

The group, whose attacks on oil installations in the past week have cut Nigeria’s oil exports by more than 20 percent, threatened to launch more attacks “without further warning”.

Political Affairs