Chinese telecom firm's special team arrives in Nigeria on hostage rescue mission

A special team from China's Sichuan Telecommunication Company, of which five workers were kidnapped last Friday in southern Nigeria, arrived here on Tuesday with a view of cooperating with the Nigerian authorities to resolve the hostage issue.

At the Lagos international airport, a leader of the seven- member team told Xinhua that he believed the hostage issue would be solved with a satisfactory result under the leadership of the Chinese embassy to Nigeria.

"We will cooperate with the Chinese embassy's rescue team and the Nigerian authorities on the rescue mission," said the team leader who gave his name as Yan.

"There is full of hope as Nigerian President (Olusegun Obasanjo) had said he himself would assume responsibility for rescuing the abducted Chinese workers," he added.

Meeting with Chinese Ambassador Xu Jianguo at his presidential villa in the capital Abuja on Sunday, Obasanjo also said the kidnapping issue would be "well resolved," pointing out that he hoped the incident would not affect the development of Nigeria- China friendly cooperation.

The five Chinese workers were abducted by a group of gunmen at around 6 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) at their rented residence in Emouha, about 60 km northwest of the state capital Port Harcourt.

The Chinese embassy's rescue team of five people flew to Port Harcourt on Sunday afternoon aimed at liaising with the state government and the police on the rescue mission.

According to local media, Chairman of the Emouha Local Government Area Emeka Woke said the local government was "making progress" on resolving the issue.

Kidnappings of foreigners have become common since the beginning of 2006. In the past one year and more, more than 80 foreign workers, most of them were workers in petroleum sector were taken as hostage. But all of them were released unharmed.

Source: Xinhua