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LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Unidentified gunmen attacked Italian oil company Agip's offices in southern Nigeria Tuesday, a company official said, sparking a gunfight that left seven people dead as militants claiming to hold four foreign hostages said the captives were in good health.
The Agip official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because company rules prohibit speaking with reporters, said gunmen raided the offices in the southern oil center of Port Harcourt before noon and that seven people whose identities remain unknown were killed in a ensuing gunfight with security forces.
The attackers stole cash, said the official, who characterized the attack as a robbery. Officials in Port Harcourt could not immediately be reached for confirmation.
In Italy, a spokesman for Eni, the Italian energy company which includes Agip, said Eni was "trying to understand what has happened" in Nigeria. Eni said it had no immediate details. The Italian Foreign Ministry said that no Italians were among the victims but had no other details.
The company official in Nigeria said there was no evidence the attack was part of a spate of violence that has hit the oil-rich regions of Africa's largest petroleum producer.
A rash of attacks and kidnappings in recent weeks have cut Nigeria's daily exports of 2.5 million by nearly 10 percent and claimed at least 20 lives while helping send crude prices higher on international markets.
Despite the massive amounts of crude pumped from southern Nigeria, much of the region remains in abject poverty and activist groups have been agitating for President Olusegun Obasanjo's federal government to provide them with a greater share of state oil revenues.
Hostages moved deeper into delta Meanwhile, militants claiming to hold four foreign hostages elsewhere in the oil-rich Niger Delta said the oil workers -- an American, Bulgarian, Briton and Honduran -- are in decent health but had been moved deeper into the region of swamps and creeks after the government failed to meet the captors' demands.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, purported representatives of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta that says it is holding the oil workers said Nigeria had not yet met demands for authorities to release two of the region's leaders from jail.
"Be assured therefore that the hostages in return, will remain our guests," said the statement, whose authors could not be verified. Demands and news of the hostages' conditions have repeatedly been sent from the same e-mail address.
The statement said the hostages taken 13 days ago had been moved further into the Niger Delta, a swampy region of 70,000 square kilometers where much of the petroleum is pumped in Africa's largest oil exporter.
The hostages "are in good health and have adapted fairly well to the conditions under which the people of the Niger Delta have been kept for the last 48 years," the statement said.
Leaders face treason, corruption charges The militants are demanding the release of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a militia leader from the region facing treason charges, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the one-time regional governor detained for corruption.
They allege the two ethnic Ijaw leaders were facing persecution by Obasanjo's government for advocating more local control of oil resources, a cause they have now vowed to pursue by armed struggle.
While they have threatened more attacks in the south, it was not known if the gunfight at the Agip offices were part of their campaign.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Posts: 1532 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2001
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I think violent acts like these will continue so long as Nigeria practices neo-colonialism against indigenous peoples, abusing their environment and insulting their sense of fairness in every way imaginable. People who work for oil companies need to be aware of what those companies, in conjunction with the Nigerian government, are doing and have been doing to the land and its inhabitants for decades. Everyone has a choice. If I work for Hitler, I shouldn't be surprised if Jews try to kill me. But it seems that the love of money is greater than the desire for justice, so some continue to work for and support what many, if not most, see as a menace to their lives and society, by being the main means of support for the government that terrorizes them. It is a sad testimony to the mistake called Nigeria.
___________________ The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves... Posts: 660 | From: Valle del Sol | Registered: Nov 2004
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