Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
Voice of America is funded by the US Federal Government and content it
exclusively produces is in the public domain.
July 9, 2007

Nigerian Gunmen Release British Girl
------------------------------------

http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=1816A4C:A6F02AD83191E1606D973562F81A0DEF9574F7DCC14957C0 Kidnapping of
Margaret Hill, 3, provoked huge outcry; officials say no ransom was
paid A three-year-old British toddler who was kidnapped last week in
Nigeria's oil-rich Rivers state has been released and reunited with
her family. Gilbert da Costa reports that Margaret Hill's abduction
provoked a huge outcry.









Mike Hill and his three-year-old daughter Margaret sit inside car
after her release, 09 Jul 2007Rivers state government spokesman
Emmanuel Orkar says no ransom was paid for the release of Margaret
Hill. He says her abductors had initially demanded a ransom payment of
about $400,000.



"Clearly, the Rivers state government decided to make it very clear
that they were not going to pay a dime to anybody," he said.
"Negotiations began and initially they were asking for 50 million
naira [about $400,000], and they kept going down. ... It now came to a
point where they agreed and asked the SSS [State Security Service] to
come and pick the baby at Ogbakiri."



Gunmen intercepted a car carrying Margaret to school on Thursday and
kidnapped her, the first abduction of a foreign child in Nigeria's
unruly oil region.



Her snatching triggered a storm of protests from many Nigerians,
including President Umaru Yar'Adua, who dispatched the country's
police chief to the region to help secure Margaret's release.



More than a dozen foreigners are being held by gunmen motivated by
ransom, including five kidnapped last week from an offshore oil rig.



About 200 foreign workers have been abducted since the end of 2005,
making criminal kidnapping widespread in Nigeria's main oil producing
region.



Journalist Ibiba Don Pedro in Port Harcourt says a high-level
complicity involving state officials is driving the
kidnapping-for-ransom culture.



"The people have not even begun to learn to devise strategies to
handle this situation as a people because it is clearly beyond them,"
he said. "The very people in power are the people at the center of
this crisis."



Sunday, Nigerian television reported the kidnapping of three
foreigners, believed to be either Lebanese or Chinese, from a compound
in Port Harcourt.


.