 Four foreign oil workers held hostage by Nigerian militants have been released and are well. A government spokesman said the hostages, an American, Briton, Bulgarian and Honduran, were released on Monday. The spokesman for Nigeria's southern state of Bayelsa said: "They have all been released. They are all alive and well." A militant Ijaw group with apparent links to the kidnappers had sent an email on Sunday agreeing to the hostages' release as a goodwill gesture to the international community. The hostages were abducted from an offshore oilfield in the Niger Delta operated by Royal Dutch Shell on 11 January. The militants had demanded more local control over the delta's oil wealth, compensation for pollution to villages and the release of two ethnic Ijaw leaders. They have staged several attacks on oil installations in the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, reducing output by 10%. |