LONDON — Militant youths in Nigeria have released about 50 oil workers — including five Britons, two Americans and an Egyptian — after taking them hostage when they seized a drilling rig off the African country's coast, Britain's Foreign Office and the platform owner said Monday.
The hostages, who were seized Thursday night, were all unharmed, said Transocean Sedco Forex spokesman Guy Cantwell, speaking from the company's office in Houston. Transocean operated the rig, known as the Trident 8, on behalf of Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos.
The rig workers were airlifted to the city of Port Harcourt and would be transported home from there, Cantwell said.
A Foreign Office official in London confirmed that the hostages were safe and have been airlifted to safety.
In addition to the eight foreigners, the hostages included an estimated 42 residents of Nigeria, Cantwell said.
The takeover resulted from a dispute over the sharing of the region's oil wealth, he said. Residents of southern Nigeria's oil-rich coast have often complained that national leaders have exploited the resource for their own benefit and returned too little of the wealth to the communities where the oil is produced.
Protesters regularly sabotage pipeline installations and take hostages from oil companies to call attention to the lack of development and abject living conditions in the Niger Delta, where most of the country's oil is drilled. Although Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest oil producer, many residents of the delta live in desperate poverty — without paved roads, electricity or running water.
Cerris Tavinor, a Shell spokeswoman in London, could not immediately confirm the hostages' release but said Shell officials had been negotiating with the youths. The youths, who came from the Bilabiri community in southeastern Bayelsa State, seized the rig Thursday night, Tavinor said.
It was the second such incident this month. Militants freed 165 oil workers on Aug. 4 after holding them for five days on two Shell Oil Co. rigs in Bayelsa.