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Gunmen hijack school bus in Nigeria: police

28 September 2010 21:37 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Gunmen who hijacked a school bus and kidnapped 15 children on board in Nigeriaâ€™s oil-rich south demanded a 130,000-dollar ransom for their release on Tuesday, a police spokesman said, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
It was thought to be the first such hijacking in Abia state, where a series of kidnappings for ransom have occurred, according to the police spokesman.
"Some gunmen hijacked the school bus yesterday and took away 15 children to an unknown place," Abia state police spokesman Geofrey Ogbonna told AFP.
"The abductors have contacted the (owner of the private school) and asked for 20 million naira (128,900 dollars, 95,650 euros). We are making efforts to locate where they are held so as to free them."
A police source told AFP the children were between three and 10 years old, but Obgonna could not confirm their ages.
Ogbonna said the gunmen, driving a Toyota Camry, ordered the driver to stop at gunpoint before taking the children of Abayi International School away.
Despite the schoolâ€™s name, all of the children were thought to be Nigerian, he said.
He said the children were believed to come from wealthy families, as is the case with most private school pupils in Nigeria, adding that there was no report they had been hurt.
The oil-producing Niger Delta region has seen scores of kidnappings in recent years, often by criminal gangs seeking ransom payments, but also by militants demanding a fairer distribution of oil revenue.
Police said recently that more than 300 suspected kidnappers had been arrested since February.
In July, gunmen kidnapped four journalists on their way from a conference in Abia state. The incident drew outrage both locally and internationally before they were freed after one week.
It was the second such incident involving journalists in the country in recent months.
In March, three M-Net Supersport television crew members -- a South African and two Nigerians -- were seized from a bus in Imo State, which neighbours the oil hub of Rivers State. They were freed about a week later.
Last week, gunmen stormed a French-flagged oil field supply tug and seized three French sailors offshore in the Niger Delta, home to the countryâ€™s multi-billion-dollar oil industry.
A Thai national was also seized on the same night, and the victims are yet to be released.
The French sailorsâ€™ employer, maritime services firm Bourbon, said they were abducted when pirates equipped with several speedboats attacked their 2,000-tonne ship.
French and Nigerian officials had said the kidnapping appeared purely criminal with no political motive.
An amnesty deal offered to Niger Delta militants last year has greatly reduced unrest in the region, but kidnappings for ransom have continued to occur.
At the peak of the violence in the region, the countryâ€™s oil output declined to less than one million barrels per day from 2.6 million.
Current production has ramped up to 2.14 million barrels per day.