Nigerian gunmen have freed three British oil workers and their Colombian colleague, who were abducted last week in the Niger Delta.
“All kidnapped victims – the three Britons and the Columbian – have been released this evening and [are] looking okay,” Rita Abbey, a spokeswoman for Rivers State police, said.
She gave no further details on their state of health or if a ransom was paid before their release was secured.
Earlier, police said that the gunmen had demanded 300 million naira (£1.2 million) for the release of the captives, who were seized by gunmen last Tuesday.
Their police escort was shot dead during the ambush, which was the first major kidnapping for six months in the volatile delta region.
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The four men – contract workers for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell – have not been identified. They were abducted in an ambush as they travelled to work from the southern oil city of Port Harcourt to the Shell-operated Afam power plant, police said.
The incident was the first major kidnapping in southern Nigeria since July last year, following a lull in the wake of a government amnesty which led to thousands of militants laying down their arms.
Armed groups demanding a fairer share of oil revenue for locals have since 2006 staged attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta, playing havoc with crude output and international oil prices.
In October, the most sophisticated of the groups, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), declared an open-ended ceasefire and said it would talk to the authorities.
But MEND said recently that it was reviewing its indefinite ceasefire and would announce its new policy on or before January 30.
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MEND denied involvement in the latest kidnap.
Hundreds of foreign and local oil workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta since 2006. Many have been released unharmed, others after ransom payments.
Last year Shell said that 133 of its workers and contractors had been kidnapped between 2006 and 2008.
Militants have also attacked pipelines and offshore facilities and even Lagos harbour. At the weekend, militants targeted Chevron pipelines in a second such attack since the Government’s amnesty came into effect.
Oil is the economic mainstay of Nigeria, accounting for 95 percent of the country’s earnings.