BAUCHI, NIGERIA – Gunmen attacked a camp for a construction company in northern Nigeria, killing a guard and kidnapping seven foreign workers from Britain, Greece, Italy, Lebanon and the Philippines, authorities said Sunday, in the biggest kidnapping yet in a region under attack by Islamic extremists.
The attack Saturday night happened in Jama’are, a town in Bauchi state. There, the gunmen first attacked a local prison, burning two police trucks, Bauchi state police spokesman Hassan Muhammed said.
The gunmen then targeted a workers’ camp for Lebanese construction company Setraco, which is building a road in the area, Muhammed said. The gunmen shot dead a guard at the camp before kidnapping the foreign workers, the spokesman said.
“The gunmen came with explosives, which they used to break some areas,” Muhammed said.
One British citizen, one Greek, one Italian, three Lebanese and one Filipino were kidnapped, said Adamu Aliyu, the chairman of the local government area that encompasses Jama’are. He said one of the hostages was a woman, while the rest were men.
Italian news agency ANSA later said authorities confirmed an Italian had been kidnapped. It quoted Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi saying the safety of the hostage must be given “absolute priority.”
Greece confirmed one of its citizens was abducted. A statement from Greece’s Foreign Ministry said authorities had a plane on standby to send investigators to Nigeria and that its foreign minister had been in contact with Terzi.
“Two Greek police officers, liaisons in Greece’s Nigerian Embassy, are in contact with their colleagues of the countries involved and the Nigerian authorities,” the statement said.
Kidnappings targeting expatriates have long been a scourge in Nigeria’s oil-rich south.
While such incidents in the north have been isolated, Islamist group Ansaru, seen as an offshoot of Boko Haram, appears to have made the abduction of foreigners a priority after it claimed the kidnapping of a French national in December.
The south of the country, Africa’s most populous with about 160 million people, is predominantly Christian. Kidnappings in the south, typically involving foreign oil workers, have often seen hostages released following a ransom payment, but such incidents in the north are considered a different phenomenon.
Shehu Sani, an expert on religious violence in northern Nigeria, said Islamists in the region may have turned to kidnappings to “attract further international attention.” He said it is difficult to assess Ansaru as a distinct threat from Boko Haram until it becomes possible to “establish a clear leader of the group,” separate from purported Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau.
Many sought to blame Boko Haram for the kidnapping of a Briton and an Italian in the north in 2011, as well as the seizure of a German outside the region’s largest city last year. All three died in captivity.
But Boko Haram, which occasionally claims attacks, has never acknowledged involvement in the abductions of Westerners.
Ansaru raised its profile in claiming the abduction of the French citizen in the northern state of Katsina in December, but little is yet known about the group. It is thought to have forged closer ties with the al-Qaida affiliates in North Africa, which has profited from the kidnapping of foreigners for ransom.
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