A British oil worker killed yesterday during a botched rescue attempt after being taken hostage from an oil ship off the coast of southern Nigeria has been named by police as 58-year-old David Hunt, from Teeside.
Mr Hunt, a married father of two grown-up children, was killed and an Italian seriously wounded as Nigerian security services tried to free seven foreigners taken hostage by militants in the turbulent African country’s oil-rich Delta region.
A Nigerian navy spokesman told journalists that the remaining five foreign hostages, who were working for the Italian oil company ENI, had been rescued unharmed, adding that two militants had been killed.
But Reuters today reported that two hostages rather than one had been wounded in the stand-off while four had been released without injury. It remained unclear who exactly had shot Mr Hunt.
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Gunmen seized the seven hostages early yesterday from a supply vessel belonging to a subsidiary of the Italian oil giant.
The family of Mr Hunt, who also had five grandchildren, today spoke of their devastation at his death.
In a statement issued through Cleveland Police his wife Janice said: “David was a wonderful loving son, husband, father and grandfather. His death has left us utterly devastated.”
The statement added that Mr Hunt had worked abroad for many years, with spells in Italy, Syria, Libya and latterly Nigeria. He was a production superintendent working on the vessel Mystras - an FPSO tanker and oil refinery based off the coast of Nigeria.
He had flown out to Lagos to join the vessel on October 24 after a holiday in Spain with his wife.
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The latest attack, which comes after months of increasing instability in the Delta region, will fuel fears that Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest oil producer, is slipping out of control.
In September President Obasanjo — a man hailed in the West as a anti-corruption reformer but reviled at home as a former military dictator — promised strong action to curb armed groups in the Delta. The groups, run by warlords with close links to senior government figures, are demanding a greater share of oil revenues.
Mr Obasanjo, who failed to win backing for a third term in elections due next year, has found himself increasingly unable to control the situation. It is an open secret in the Delta that many senior government officials are involved in oil-related violence and thinly veiled blackmail threats against international oil companies operating in the Gulf of Guinea.
Unconfirmed reports say that the kidnappers even take their orders from senior government officials, who play the oil futures markets before such kidnappings to raise funds for campaigns in next year’s election, expected to be one of the most violent in a country that, since independence, has been ruled mostly by the military.
The seven hostages were seized from the supply ship off the Niger Delta coast by ten armed men on speedboats.
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Since the beginning of the year militant groups have attacked pipelines and taken oil workers hostage in violence that has cut about 25 per cent of the country’s usual crude output of 2.5 million barrels a day.
Civilian protesters have also taken over oil facilities to protest against a lack of jobs and development in a region where oil pollution has destroyed traditional fishing villages.