The main armed militant group in southern Nigeria said that a British hostage it planned to release on Monday after holding him for about nine months had declined to go free.
“Mr Mathew Maguire has declined the gift of a release from captivity with an argument that he is now an advocate for change in the region and a honorary member of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [MEND],” the group said in an e-mail to reporters.
“This has come as a surprise to us and we can not forcibly eject him from our camp against his will,” MEND said in the statement.
“He insists that his release should only be considered when [guerrilla leader] Henry Okah is freed to participate in a credible peace process or has been allowed to travel for his urgent kidney surgery,” it said.
An earlier statement on Monday by MEND said that it planned to release Maguire, an oil worker who has been in captivity since last September, as a birthday gift.
“Today, June 1 is Mathew Maguire’s birthday. He has spent close to nine months in captivity and we hope to release him today as his gift,” the group said in the statement.
He was abducted along with another Briton, Robin Barry Hughes, who was released in April on health grounds.
Hundreds of people, most but not all of them linked to the oil sector, have been kidnapped in the delta in the past three and a half years. Most have been released after a few days or weeks.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would make a decision about how the US government would refer to the body of water commonly known as the Persian Gulf when he visits Arab states next week. Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects his hosts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will ask him about the US officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. “They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s
RSS