KANO, Nigeria: A group of 30 gunmen stormed a residence in northern Nigeria where expatriate workers were staying, kidnapping a French engineer and killing a security guard and a neighbour, police yesterday.
The gate outside the building that housed employees of the French company Vergnet had several bullet holes after the raid late Wednesday in the northern state of Katsina, according to residents and police.
Vergnet said that the abducted engineer was a contractor working for the firm, which specialises in alternative energy and has a wind power project in Katsina.
Northern Nigeria has been repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram Islamists who are blamed for killing hundreds in the region since 2009.
But Katsina state police chief Abdullahi Magaji said that he did not believe the Islamists were responsible for the Frenchman’s abduction.
“They opened fire killing a security guard employed by the company and a neighbour of the house and badly injured a policeman guarding the house,” he said.
“The gunmen later threw an explosive device into the police station on their way out (of) the town to distract the police from pursuing them.”
A resident, who requested anonymity, said the gunmen had “laid siege” to the neighbourhood after arriving in a convoy of vehicles, and that gunfire could be heard around the residence for 20 minutes before the attackers fled.
The police chief said the French engineer had recently returned from a trip abroad and that two other foreigners who live in the building were currently out of Nigeria.
Katsina state, on the border with Niger, lies in a region assailed by Boko Haram, but it has been spared from the Islamist group’s attacks.
The insurgents say they are fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.
Security officials have blamed Boko Haram for previous similar abductions, but the group, which frequently claims gun and bomb attacks, has never acknowledged seizing a foreign national.
Following the abduction of a British and Italian in northwest Sokoto state last year, Nigeria’s government sought to blame Boko Haram. Residents however ruled out the group’s involvement, insisting it was the work of local gangs.
The two Europeans were killed in March amid a rescue operation jointly planned with British authorities. In January, unidentified gunmen kidnapped German engineer Edgar Raupach in Kano state, which is next to Katsina.
He was found dead in May in a home described as a Boko Haram hideout. AFP
