<<Print>>

A South African TV worker has been freed by Nigerian kidnappers a week after he was taken near the oil-rich Delta region. Nick Greyling, a sound engineer from South African TV channel SuperSport, was abducted along with two Nigerian co-workers in Owerri. One of his colleagues escaped a day after the abduction, but the fate of the other man is not yet clear. The men were seized after they had been covering a football match in Enugu. Nomfanelo Kota, from South Africa's international relations department, confirmed Mr Greyling's release. "We would like to thank the Nigerian government for its co-operation and we wish the citizen well as he returns home," she told South African news agency Sapa. Militant groups and opportunistic gangs kidnap foreigners relatively often in the volatile delta region. AFP news agency quoted security sources as saying a ransom of $100,000 (�67,000) was paid for the release of the South African man, though there was no official confirmation. Militants in the Niger Delta have cost Nigeria's oil industry millions of dollars over the years. A variety of groups have claimed to be fighting for the rights of local people to gain a greater share of the region's wealth. But in reality, many of the groups have stolen oil from pipelines and extracted ransoms from kidnaps, using the money to arm themselves and finance more attacks.