Nigerian gunmen begin negotiations for release of 24 Pinoys

Gunmen have started negotiating for the release of 24 Filipino seafarers taken hostage aboard a German cargo ship in Nigerian waters, a foreign affairs official said yesterday.

The government initially said six sailors had been kidnapped.

But in a press briefing yesterday, foreign affairs undersecretary for migrant workers affairs Esteban Conejos Jr. said they received information from the owner of the oil cargo vessel that the entire crew of 24 Filipinos were abducted.

The ship was near the Nigerian oil city of Warri when the gunmen took 17 sailors to a nearby village Saturday and forced the remaining sailors to stay on board, Conejos said.

"Based on new information, the German-owned Baco Liner II was manned by a 24-Filipino crew," he said. "There’s reasonable belief to assume that the entire crew and the ship were hostaged. The ship owner has no radio communication and contact with the ship."

Conejos met yesterday with representatives of the local manning agency who handed him a letter from the ship’s owner stating what happened last Saturday.

Local Nigerian government officials had already identified a negotiator and talks were underway, Conejos said, adding that all the Filipinos were apparently "safe and sound."

The gunmen are from the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which has been seeking the release of the movement’s leader and two other men charged with treason, he said.

Conejos said he was unaware of any specific demands from the group in the current negotiations.

The Nigerian government was fully cooperating with the Philippines to win the hostages’ release, he said.

"Both of our governments are dead set to resolve this incident peacefully," Conejos pointed out.

President Arroyo on Monday suspended the deployment of Filipino workers to Nigeria until the hostage crisis is resolved.

The DFA withheld the names of the abducted Filipino workers pending notification of their families.

Remi Oyo, spokesperson for Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, said their foreign minister would be speaking with the representative of the Philippine government to explain the situation in Nigeria, "and to say that it is not that we are not doing our best to ensure that those that have been seized get back home safe and sound."

Oyo told AFP that Nigeria saw the Philippines as a "friendly nation" and that Mrs. Arroyo’s travel ban would be handled "in a friendly manner."

She further said that Obasanjo "is very concerned and unhappy about the situation and he has said that his government will no longer continue to treat the hostage-takers with kid gloves."

Cooking for the abductors

The ship, Baco-Liner 2, remained anchored off Warri under the gunmen’s control, Conejos said.

The ship is maintained by seven crew members including the captain, chief officer, two cooks and three sailors, he said. The cooks are preparing food that is being taken to the hostages in the village, he added.

However, Klaus Steffen, manager at Baco-Liner GmbH of Duisburg, Germany, said his company had no contact with the ship’s crew and could not confirm that only seven crew members remained on board.

"We have no contact directly with the ship because the entire crew must have been overpowered. I don’t know how many people are on board now," Steffen said.

Further details about the ship, its course and cargo were not immediately known.

The government called on the seafarers’ abductors to release them immediately.

Ambassador to Nigeria Masaranga Umpa has been instructed by the DFA to work closely with Nigerian federal and state authorities in securing the seamen’s release.

The German Embassy in Nigeria has joined diplomatic efforts to secure the sailors’ release.

The group behind the abduction has launched crippling assaults against the energy industry in Africa’s oil giant since last year.

Two days before the seizure of the Filipino crew, the group released five Chinese and one Italian hostage, seized earlier in separate incidents in the oil-rich southern Delta region.

Conejos said the MEND has been consistent in their demand involving other nationals abducted by the group. The MEND had asked for the release of two prisoners, a former governor and head of the people’s front organization, who are facing charges of treason.

"It’s a people’s organization agitating over the last several years of equal wealth and oil resources to the people in the area. They feel the big companies are depriving the people of just share. They had submitted political demands in the past," he said.

The commander of the militants had previously declared a war on all foreign oil interests in the Delta.

The recent abduction is the fifth incident involving Filipinos since 2006.

DFA records showed that there are around 3,900 Filipinos residing and working in Nigeria.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Ed Malaya told AFP that Nigeria was one of the biggest employers of Filipino workers in Africa, with some 3,900 Filipinos employed there at the end of 2006.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of kidnappings and attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta since the beginning of last year.

In 2006 more than 60 foreigners, mostly oil workers, were kidnapped, and dozens of Nigerians were killed by militants and bandits. — AP, Pia Lee-Brago, AFP