Gunmen kidnapped seven foreign
workers and killed a security guard at a construction company in
Nigeria’s northeastern Bauchi state late yesterday, police said.
The hostages include four Lebanese, a U.K. national, a
Greek and an Italian, Hassan Mohammed, a police spokesman, said
today by phone from Bauchi, the state capital. They work for
Setraco Nigeria Ltd., he said. The gunmen were repelled when
they tried to attack a local police station, he said.
Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, has carried out gun
and bomb attacks in the north and the capital, Abuja, killing
hundreds since 2009. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country
with more than 160 million people, is roughly split between the
largely Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
A British citizen and an Italian seized last year from the
northwestern town of Birnin Kebbi were killed in the city of
Sokoto in March by their captors during a failed rescue attempt
by U.K. and Nigerian forces. Nigerian authorities accused Boko
Haram of the abduction. The Islamists denied any involvement.
A German engineer kidnapped in the northern city of Kano in
January last year was killed by his captors on May 30 when
security forces made an attempt to rescue him.
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