Victims in Nigeria Included 2 Americans

Two Americans were among at least five people killed when gunmen attacked a boat carrying contractors of U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco and their military escorts in Nigeria’s southern delta region, company and army officials said Saturday.

A third American, a ChevronTexaco employee, was in stable condition with a gunshot wound from the Friday afternoon attack on the Benin River near the southern city of Warri, ChevronTexaco spokesman Deji Haastrup said.

The gunmen opened fire after navy personnel guarding the oil workers refused to give up their arms, Haastrup said.

Authorities have recovered the bodies of the two slain Americans, who worked for Houston-based engineering company International Building Systems Inc.

IBS Chief Executive George Pinder identified them as Denny Fowler of Dallas and Ryne Hathaway, 42, of Universal City, Texas.

Also retrieved were the remains of three Nigerians: two navy personnel and one boat crew member identified as a contract worker for international oil consulting firm Willbros, military officials said. Two other Nigerians remain missing, they said.

The motive for the attack was unclear, but criminals and ethnic fighters regularly sabotage multinational oil facilities and take oil workers hostage in the delta to demand payoffs from the companies.

Maj. Said Ahmed, commander of a Nigerian army task force charged with protecting oil installations in the region, said the army is investigating whether the attack was linked to growing ethnic tensions in the area after efforts by ethnic Itsekiris to return to villages they fled during an outbreak of fighting last year.

The oil workers had been sent to inspect ChevronTexaco oil and gas facilities at Dibi and Olero Creek, among dozens of installations abandoned by the company since the outbreak of ethnic violence in March 2003, company officials said.

“We have suspended activities relating to the restoration of swamp facilities,” Haastrup, the spokesman, said Saturday. “We will only operate if it is safe.”

Michael W. Collier, a Houston-based spokesman for Willbros, confirmed that one of the slain Nigerians worked for that company. Another Nigerian employee of the company was still missing, Collier said.