Up to 17 foreign workers kidnapped in Nigeria

LAGOS, May 3 (Reuters) Up to 17 foreign workers in Nigeria's oil industry were kidnapped by gunmen today, including up to six from an offshore platform.

It was the second time within a year that the Mistras facility, located off the southern Nigerian state of Bayelsa and operated by Italian oil company AGIP, has been targeted, security sources said.

A group of South Korean and Filipino workers was also taken hostage from a power plant construction site after a gun battle.

A South Korean foreign ministry official and company officials said three Koreans and eight Filipinos were taken at the site near Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta. Nigerian police said three Koreans and seven Filipinos were captured.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Daewoo officials in the delta as saying the abduction followed a 40-minute gun battle between the unidentified captors and security guards, which probably left scores of people dead or injured.

A Nigerian security source said the three Koreans were senior managers who had just arrived in Nigeria.

A Daewoo Engineering&Construction official confirmed the abductees were their contract workers and said their condition was not immediately known.

There has been a wave of violence against the energy industry in the delta where militancy is fuelled by poverty, lawlessness, corruption and struggles for control of a lucrative oil theft business.

The abductions raise to 22 the number of foreign workers being held by armed groups, according to Nigerian police.

The militants say they want autonomy for the vast wetlands region that pumps all of Nigeria's oil.

In June last year, five South Korean Daewoo gas workers were freed 40 hours after they were abducted in the same area by rebels demanding the release of their jailed leader, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari.

REUTERS SZ DS1343