Three more foreign oil workers were abducted in Nigeria, this time they were from Eastern Europe, expanding the roster of nations affected by kidnappings carried out by armed militants.
Gunmen reportedly abducted two Croatians and a Montenegrin late Tuesday from a bar in Port Harcourt, the main city in the petroleum-rich Niger Delta.
Croatia's Deputy Foreign Minister Vinko Ljubicic told his country's state-run news agency he had not received word of demands from kidnappers; he did speculate their abduction was "about ransom."
The abduction followed the earlier kidnappings of four Mormon missionaries, who were reportedly picked up over the weekend in Port Harcourt by yet unidentified gunmen.
Although several U.S. citizens have been abducted by Nigerian militants over the last 18 months, it was the first time Croatians and Montenegrins were seized.
One nation particularly troubled by the violence against its citizens working in the Nigerian oil sector is the Philippines, whose leaders ordered a ban on Filipino nationals from working in Nigerian petroleum until further notice.
The ban -- instituted earlier this month -- remains in effect despite the recent freeing of 24 Filipinos held hostage for weeks by militants purportedly belonging to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a group that has used violence and kidnappings to bring attention the economic disparity between multibillion oil interests operating in the delta and its impoverished residents.
MEND says it is fighting for a more even distribution of the country's oil revenue, though in a recent interview with CNN, some armed militants said they were keen on bringing down the entire industry and forcing all foreign nations to leave Nigeria. Violence attributed to the group is responsible for thousands of workers leaving the country and a 20 percent loss in revenue in 2006, said a recent reported.
The Philippines banning its nationals working in Nigeria could be the beginning of a dangerous trend for the country's oil sector, Africa's largest and the world's eighth-largest exporter.
"How long will the ban last? As long as it takes to ensure that our workers are safe," a Filipino official at the country's embassy in Washington told United Press International last week.
Despite the danger, Nigeria's oil industry is still a draw. A group of Filipino workers bound for jobs in the delta reportedly arrived in the Nigerian city of Kano on Feb. 10, three weeks after Filipino President Gloria Arroyo officially banned all nationals from traveling to Nigeria for work.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to retake control of the delta to improve oil production while attempting to make inroads and improve the lives of the region's residents. In August, he vowed to crack down on MEND hoping it would demonstrate the government's commitment to tackling the violence. However, since then, militants have stepped up attacks and kidnappings and vowed to continue their struggle.
"As a whole, Nigeria's economy can probably withstand sudden shocks to the energy sector, but the fiscal operations of the federal and state governments, which depend heavily on oil revenues, will likely not survive for long if the energy industry in the delta is brought to a standstill," said Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, an analyst with the Eurasia Group.
