LAGOS - Two Turkish engineers were kidnapped on Friday night in volatile oil-rich southern Nigeria, police and industry sources said Saturday.
Rivers State police chief Felix Ogbaudu told AFP the men worked for a subcontractor of Italian oil company Agip.
"They were driving last night in Port Harcourt when they were intercepted", Ogbaudu said.
A industry source said the men set off to attend a meeting at Port Harcourt`s Presidential Hotel but never arrived and have not been heard from since.
A police officier in Port Harcourt close to the scene of the abduction identified the men`s employer as Merpa, a Turkish telecommunications engineering company.
Ogbaudu had previously given the company`s name as Marta Engineering. Both officials said the company was an Agip subcontractor.
Agip never comments on kidnappings involving its staff or its subcontractors.
No one has claimed responsibility for this latest kidnapping.
In Ankara, a diplomatic source said the foreign ministry was closely monitoring the affair and working for the men`s early release.
"We have mobilised over this kidnapping, which does not appear to be directed at Turks in particular but all foreigners," the source said, who asked not to be named.
More than 60 foreigners have been kidnapped in southern Nigeria so far this year, at least as many as were abducted during the whole of 2006.
Abduction attempts have become increasingly daring in recent months, with armed groups raiding deep water installations and snatching oil workers from town centre locations.
Two Chinese nationals abducted on March 17 in the southeastern state of Anambra remain missing.
But four foreign hostages -- two Lebanese men, a Briton and a Dutch national -- were released three days ago after being held in separate locations in the Niger Delta by different armed groups.
A member of a militant group in Port Harcourt said that money had changed hands for the release of the four, but did not elaborate further.
Some of the hostage-takers are well-organised, well-equipped groups fighting for a greater share of oil wealth to go to local communities. Others are more like criminal gangs out to make money from ransom payments.
The inhabitants of the Niger Delta complain that their region generates some 95 per cent of Nigeria`s foreign currency earnings but that they have little to show for this in terms of economic development and living standards.
Most of the hostages have been released unharmed, but a few have been held for protracted periods and two were held for more than three months.
European Union officials have said that for security reasons EU observers who will be monitoring forthcoming elections in Nigeria will not deploy to the three most volatile states in the Niger delta -- Rivers, Delta State and Bayelsa.
The best-known armed group in the region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) warned recently that it would step up and diversify its campaign of violence against oil interests.
Over the past few days, however, MEND has kept an unusually low profile.
04/07/2007 11:29 GMT