99 Hostages Employed by Shell Freed in Nigeria

Oil giant Shell operating in Nigeria has announced that 99 oil workers were freed on Monday after being held hostage by indigenous youths for five days on an oil rig offshore Nigeria.

Nineteen of the workers, including at least five Britons, five Americans, one South African and three Australians, are foreign nationals, a Shell oil company spokesman said.

Eighty others released are Nigerians, the spokesman said.

The release followed local community elders promised the Shell to ask the youths to leave.

"Our people went into negotiations with the youths and the hostage-takers agreed to vacate the rig last night, but it was late so they couldn't leave," said the spokesman. "They are all now off the rig. Everyone is off the rig."

The oil workers had been held captive last Thursday by a group of militant youths on a rig almost 100 kilometers off Nigeria's coast. News of the incident has only just been released.

Some minor injuries were suffered in fighting between the youths and the oil workers, but no major injuries occurred, according to Shell officials.

A spokesman for the British deputy high commission in Lagos said most of the foreign oil workers were to be flown out of Nigeria later Monday.

In June last year, oil workers working for the United States oil giant Chevron were seized by youths reportedly supporting the struggle in the Niger Delta area for a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth.

The 24 workers, mostly Nigerian workers, were later released unharmed.

To date, Nigeria is the biggest oil producer in Africa with a daily output of some 2.4 million barrels. But almost three- quarters of the production is made by the West oil companies operating in the West African country.

In terms of its vast oil reserves with more than 22 billion barrels, the Niger Delta is the richest part of the country, but the people of the region remain poor. GNP per capita in the region is below the national average. The total population of the core delta region -- Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states -- is estimated to be around 8 millions, with 70 percent living in rural communities.

Militants in the Niger Delta have frequently taken foreign workers hostage in order to draw attention to their cause.






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