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CRIME

Nigeria hunts kidnappers of two German workers

Nigerian security forces on Saturday intensified efforts to track down the kidnappers of two German construction workers in Port Harcourt, the country's oil hub.

Published: 12 July 2008 16:22 CEST
Nigeria hunts kidnappers of two German workers
A file photo of workers on a Niger Delta oil field in 2006. Photo: DPA

“We are fervently searching for the abductors with a view to securing the release of the Germans,” Rivers state police spokeswoman Rita Abbey told AFP.

“The Germans were taken across the sea. But we hope to track down their captors very soon,” she assured.

Abbey said a soldier was shot and wounded when unknown gunmen seized the two workers of construction firm Julius Berger in Port Harcourt on Friday. She could not confirm a report in the local press that the man had died.

“We are acting on the assumption that two German citizens have been kidnapped in Nigeria,” a spokesman of the German Foreign Office told news agency DDP in Berlin on Saturday.

The ministry’s crisis division is working intensively for the release of the two men, the spokesman said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the incident, the latest to rock oil-rich Nigeria in recent months.

The Niger delta, home to the country’s multi-billion-dollar oil and gas resources, has seen numerous kidnappings targeting foreign energy firms in the past two years.

The attacks are often claimed by some militants who demand a greater share of oil wealth for the region’s inhabitants, while others carry out kidnappings for ransom or political reasons.

A Julius Berger employee abducted in March in Nigeria was released after several hours.

A senior Nigerian official of Julius Berger said the construction firm was “monitoring the situation” in the Niger delta following the kidnapping, but refused to say whether the incident could prompt it to pull out of the region.

Julius Berger, the Nigerian arm of German Bilfinger Berger, began operating in the country in 1965. Nigerian investors own 50.04 percent of the company while foreigners own 49.96 percent.

Several foreign firms, including French tyre company Michelin and oil servicing firm Wilbros, have left the Niger delta because of security problems.

The unrest has reduced Nigeria’s oil output by a quarter, causing Nigeria to lose its position as Africa’s biggest oil producer to Angola, according to April figures from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

afp/ddp

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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