Militias of Bakassi claimed on Friday the kidnapping of ten persons on board of a boat of the Company Bourbon off Cameroon and threatened to kill them if their demands were not satisfied. Contacted by telephone since Libreville, a “Corporal” of the movement asserted twice to AFP: “10 are between our hands. If you do not tell to the Cameroonian government to come here (to Bakassi) to discuss with us, we shall kill them all in three days “. He then hung up. “I personally led the attack in the course of which we kidnapped ten men whom we detain while I speak to you “, declared the colonel Ebi Dari, the leader of the Security Council and the defence of the delta of Niger. “If the Cameroonian government does not answer our demands within three days, we shall begin to kill them one by one “, added Dari. He clarified that the attack had been launched together with a group named the Fighters for the freedom of Bakassi (BFF).
The Bourbon Company indeed confirmed the kidnapping at night from Thursday till Friday by pirates in Cameroonian territorial waters off Bakassi (border of Nigeria). It is about ten crew members of a ship of the French group Bourbon operating on an oil terminal. Six of them are French, clarified Bourbon in a communiqué, having mentioned seven French nationals originally. Four other hostages are two Cameroonians, a Tunisian and a Senegalese.
Bakassi Freedom Fighters is a rebel group member of Niger Delta Defence and Security Council ( NDDSC) which notably claimed the attacks of June and July in the peninsula which had cost the life to 7 Cameroonian soldiers and one Sub Division Officer.