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Gunmen kidnap 21 in Nigeria

"The vessel was meant to have been destroyed. We have no need for more hostages just yet."

-- Spokesman for MEND in an e-mail

Gunmen kidnapped at least 21 people in three attacks across Nigeria's oil-rich Delta that left a Nigerian soldier dead, officials said. Nine captives were later reported freed, of whom eight were foreigners.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant group in the region, claimed responsibility for one of the attacks, on a ship anchored off Port Harcourt. It later said it had released the eight foreigners seized.

The group denied it was behind raids on a power plant and a bar in which a total of 13 people were seized, one of whom was quickly released. All the raids occurred over less than 12 hours.

MEND announced in an e-mail the hostages were on their way back to Port Harcourt by boat. A local official said authorities planned to receive them at the state government headquarters. In an earlier e-mail, MEND had said the foreigners should not have been kidnapped.

"The vessel was meant to have been destroyed. We have no need for more hostages just yet," a spokesman for the group said in the e-mail.

Italian oil firm Eni SpA confirmed an Australian, a Briton, two Croats, two Poles and a Romanian were among those taken from the ship managed by its subsidiary and anchored about 90km off the coast of the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt.

Elsewhere, eight Filipinos, three South Koreans and one Nigerian were kidnapped from a South Korean company's power plant construction site, Daewoo Engineering and Construction said in a statement. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the Nigerian driver was later freed.

In nearby Delta state, a Dutch oil worker was kidnapped from a bar in Warri, a witness said on Thursday. Flora Achudumoe, who owns the bar near an oil company compound in the city center, said the man was taken while he was watching a soccer match.

Major Sagir Musa, spokesman for a joint security task force in the region, said a Nigerian soldier was killed during the attack on the power station.

Such seizures are common in Africa's largest oil producer, where militants and criminals use them as leverage against the government, or to extract cash.

The three kidnappings bring the total number of foreigners kidnapped in the Niger delta so far this year to at least 93, surpassing the figure for all last year for the first time. Last year over 80 foreigners were seized in the region.

Nigeria is Africa's leading oil exporter and the US' fifth-largest supplier, usually exporting 2.5 million barrels daily.

Unrest has plagued Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta region for years, and in recent months gunmen have stepped up a campaign against the oil industry, blowing up oil pipelines to cut production by a fifth and kidnapping scores of foreign workers. Most captives are released unharmed.
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