Niger Delta gunmen have released three Dutch nationals who were abducted a week earlier, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
“I can confirm they have been freed,” ministry spokesman Johanne Doornewaard said, adding that the trio were in good health.
Doornewaard said he had “no information” on whether any ransom was paid for their release.
Photo: AFP
The news of the three’s release was announced earlier in the day by a Nigerian activist who had accompanied the trio.
Amsterdam-based environmental activist Sunny Ofehe was with the two Dutch men and one woman when they were seized on May 4 after armed men in a dinghy stormed their boat.
The group, which included another Netherlands-based Nigerian, were blindfolded and taken to an unknown location where the two Nigerians were released.
“I just want to inform everyone that they are free and that they are safe and in good health,” Ofehe told Dutch broadcaster NOS TV.
Doornewaard said that the released hostages were still in Nigeria and that the Netherlands’ ambassador to the country had been sent to the Delta region to meet them.
Scores of foreigners have been abducted in the southern Nigerian region that is home to Africa’s largest oil industry, with many released upon payment of a ransom.
Employees of foreign oil companies are required to have an armed escort when traveling through the Delta, but international journalists, aid workers and others typically avoid taking a security detail.
Dutch printing company Gerrits & Leffers had confirmed that two of its employees were among those abducted and that the pair were in Nigeria to help Niger Delta peace activists publish a magazine.
The third Dutch national was a documentary filmmaker, NOS TV reported, and the group was en route to visit a hospital financed by oil company Chevron when the kidnapping took place.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion