17th February, 2013
Gunmen stormed a construction site in northern Nigeria, kidnapping seven foreign workers and killing a security guard, police said Sunday, in the latest attack on expatriates in the restive region.
Two Lebanese, an Italian and a Greek have been confirmed by their governments to be among those seized in the attack late Saturday on the Setraco construction site in the town of Jama’are in Bauchi State.
Bauchi, among the states in northern Nigeria where Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has carried out repeated attacks, saw two separate gun attacks earlier Saturday, but it was not clear if the group was behind the weekend violence.
“From the report we have received, the hostages are seven in all. They include four Lebanese, an Italian, a Briton and a Greek,” Bauchi state police spokesman Hassan Auyo said.
There has been no confirmation that a Briton was among those kidnapped nor that the number of Lebanese was four.
“We are aware of reports and are making enquiries with the local authorities,” Britain’s Foreign Office said.
The Lebanese foreign ministry said two of its citizens were among those seized, while officials in Athens and Rome confirmed their citizens were kidnapped.
Bauchi’s police chief Mohammed Ladan said a security guard was shot dead in the raid in Jama’are, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the state capital Bauchi city.
Setraco Nigeria, a construction and civil engineering company, is a subsidiary of Lebanese-owned Setraco International Holding group.
The Nigerian subsidiary, which was established in 1977, is currently working on expanding a major road in northern Nigeria.
The attack on the construction site came after the same gunmen were repelled while trying to storm a police station and a prison in the town, the police chief said.
Gunmen also launched a similar attack on a police station in the town of Kafin Madaki, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the state capital, triggering a shootout, Ladan said, adding that “the attackers fled without causing any damage.”
Boko Haram, a group blamed for hundreds of deaths in northern Nigeria since 2009, has claimed several attacks on police stations.
The Islamists have also attacked prisons, reportedly to secure the release of group members being held in custody.
The kidnapping of foreigners for ransom has long been a scourge in Nigeria’s oil-rich south, but such incidents in the north remain relatively isolated.
A Briton and an Italian kidnapped in the north in 2011 as well as a German engineer seized last year in the region’s largest city of Kano were all killed in captivity.
While many sought to blame Boko Haram for the deaths, the group, which often issues statements claiming attacks, has never acknowledged involvement in the abductions of Westerners.
In December, a group known as Ansaru claimed the kidnapping of a French citizen in the northern state of Katsina. The hostage’s condition and whereabouts remain unknown.
Ansaru is thought by some to be an offshoot of Boko Haram, which may have forged ties with other Al-Qaeda linked groups operating in north and west Africa, but little is known about its make-up.
Boko Haram has said it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north. Most people who live in the south of the country, Africa’s most populous, are Christian.