Gunmen Kidnap Four Thai Nationals in Nigeria

Port Harcourt, Nigeria - Gunmen have kidnapped four Thai and two Nigerian staffers of a government-owned fish farm in Buguma, a coastal community in Nigeria's southern Rivers State, the police said Friday.

Police spokesperson Angela Agabe said the six were kidnapped while on their way to the Israeli-managed farms on Friday.

'We have received report of the abduction of four expatriates and two Nigerians,' Ms Agabe told journalists in the state capital, Port Harcourt, adding that there has yet been no claim of responsibility.

Rivers state officials said the two Nigerians have been freed while another Nigerian staffer of the farm jumped into the river in an apparent move to escape, but later drowned.

Kidnapping for ransom is rampant in southern Nigeria, where the victims are either foreigners or affluent Nigerians and their family members.

Most of those kidnapped are usually released unharmed, most of them after the payment of ransom which are rarely publicly acknowledged.