(BBC) Four foreign oil workers held hostage in Nigeria for nearly three weeks have been freed. A spokesman for the southern Bayelsa state said the American, Briton, Bulgarian and Honduran were alive and well and with the state governor. A British official has confirmed that the four have been released, reports the AFP news agency.
The four were seized in the Niger Delta region in an armed raid by militants demanding more control over resources.
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The group, however, denied that the release meant they were softening their goal "to destroy the oil export capability of the Nigerian government". "We will shortly carry out significant attacks aimed at ensuring our February target of a 30% of Nigeria's export capacity," they said in an e-mail to Reuters news agency.
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