Updated, Mar. 24
Mar. 24, 2013
NewsRescue- Reliable sources alerted NewsRescue that a travel alert was given to US citizens, allegedly due to the kidnap of a “Briton” in Victoria Island, Lagos.
The story from Global post is below:
A foreigner has been kidnapped in Nigeria’s largest city of Lagos, the US consulate said on Sunday, but few other details were immediately available.
A US consulate spokeswoman did not reveal the nationality of the victim.
Such incidents are rare in Lagos, though kidnappings for ransom occur regularly in the southern oil-producing Niger Delta region and Islamist extremists have carried out abductions in the country’s north.
“The US Consulate General in Lagos received a report that an expatriate was kidnapped on Victoria Island on Saturday, March 23 at approximately 11 pm,” the consulate said in a message to US citizens, referring to an upscale area of Lagos.
“Local Nigerian law enforcement confirmed this incident.”
Police in Lagos, the economic capital of some 15 million people located in the country’s southwest, could not be reached for comment.
Victims of kidnappings in the Niger Delta and other areas of the south are usually released unharmed after payment of ransoms.
Abductions in Nigeria’s north have however had deadly results.
Islamist extremist group Ansaru recently claimed to have executed seven foreign hostages.
In addition, a British national and an Italian were killed during a botched 2012 rescue operation, as was a German the same year.
Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram is believed to currently be holding seven members of a French family abducted over the border in Cameroon.
mjs/vjf Globalpost