Nigerian gunmen kill Colombian oil worker and kidnapped three other

Men with gun and wearing military fatigues killed a Colombian oil worker and kidnapped three other workers in an attack on a riverside oil services company compound in southern Nigeria, officials said.

Photo: Nigerian gunmen kill Colombian oil worker and kidnapped three other

Attackers firing their weapons sprang from a skiff as it landed near a compound housing an Italian oil-services firm Thursday, oil industry officials and police said. A Nigerian was also abducted.

"The suspected militants went there through the waterway and shot sporadically at the facility. In the process, an expatriate was shot while another expatriate and a Nigerian were taken away," a police spokeswoman, Ireju Barasua, told The Associated Press.

Barasua said the attack took place at the premises of oil and gas services firm Saipem, which is 43 percent owned by Eni SpA. Eni said in a statement that the Colombian who was shot during the incident later died of his injuries at an area hospital.

While the police said one foreigner and one Nigerian were abducted, ENI said one Filipino and another Colombian were taken and did not mention an abducted Nigerian. In the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos also said a Filipino had been abducted in the attack.

On Sunday, the main militant group in the region said it was ending a unilateral cease-fire it had announced to give the new government of President Umaru Yar'Adua time to negotiate with fighting factions. The group said talks had made no progress, and that the government had framed one of its leaders, who they said had been arrested in a foreign country.