Nigerian militants released six hostages -- five South Koreans and one Nigerian -- liberating them at the request of a jailed militant leader whose freedom they had demanded in exchange.
The hostages were seen arriving by car at the office of the regional governor in the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt late on Thursday, a day after they were kidnapped from a Shell gas plant as part of a violent raid in Nigeria's oil-rich delta. There they were handed over to their employers, said Rivers state attorney general, Odein Ajumogobia.
The tired and disheveled men were escorted by a Nigerian senator who received the hostages from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND.
The militants said they released the workers in response to an appeal by Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a prominent militant leader jailed last year. They had originally demanded his release in exchange for releasing the hostages.
The release of Dokubo-Asari, an ethnic Ijaw who has called for autonomy for southern Nigerians and was jailed on treason charges, has been a top militant demand since they took up arms earlier this year and began waging a violent campaign for redistribution of the country's oil wealth. It was unclear how or where Dokubo-Asari made the appeal.
MEND said they released the hostages around 4pm to Senator David Brigidi -- an ethnic Ijaw member of the Nigerian Senate who has spoken out in favor of securing greater local control of oil wealth.
Brigidi represents one of three senatorial constituencies in Bayelsa state, where the hostages were seized on Wednesday.
Earlier on Thursday, the group again warned the South Koreans' employer to leave the Niger Delta "or face even more drastic action" in the future.
The militant group has been responsible for a wave of attacks and hostage takings this year in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta. The group says the impoverished residents of the delta don't receive enough of the oil revenue.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS