A military spokesman in Nigeria says a worker for the local subsidiary of Italian oil company Eni SpA drowned while trying to escape an attack in the nation’s oil-rich southern delta.
Lt. Col. Onyema Nwachuku said Saturday that another worker suffered a gunshot wound to his leg during the attack Friday in the winding creeks of Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. Nwachuku said “sea robbers” attacked the Eni speedboat carrying workers away from an oil platform in the region.
Nwachuku said soldiers continued to hunt for the attackers.
Officials with Eni in Rome did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Despite a 2009 government-sponsored amnesty deal with militants, violence continues sporadically in the Niger Delta. In April, gunmen attacked an Eni pipeline in the same area.
