Seven people, including three Australians, kidnapped in Africa

Unidentified gunmen managed to kidnap seven people, out of which at least three were Australians, in the African city of Nigeria. The gunmen killed the local driver before kidnapping their targets who were all foreigners.

According to the details provided, all the people kidnapped were males and they were contractors for a cement company called Lafarge Africa. The incident took place in the coast city of Calabar which lies east of Lagos. The region is known to be rampant with criminal gangs and militants.

Initially, there was a lot of confusion over the nationality of the victims as the police officials gave conflicting reports. However, it was later found out that three of the hostages are Australian citizens while one was an Australian resident.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnball took notice of the incident and called it ‘very serious kidnapping’. When questioned about the kidnapping, Turnball said; “These are the facts as we know them: three Australians and one Australian resident were among seven people kidnapped in an attack on an Australia contractor’s operations in Nigeria. One person was killed in the attack,” Turnbull told reporters.

According to police reports, two of the expatriates managed to flee from the kidnappers but their whereabouts are still unknown. So far, the kidnappers have not made any contact with the police or anyone else.

Meanwhile it was reported that Lafarge Africa was informed of the incident by Australian contractor Macmahon. “Macmahon is working with the security agencies to resolve this situation,” said Viola Graham-Douglas, a spokeswoman for Lafarge Africa.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on Jun 23 2016. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.