LAGOS: Armed men abducted at least 20 foreigners in three separate incidents in southern Nigeria overnight to Thursday in the latest spate of violence to hit Africa's biggest oil producer.

The attacks followed another kidnapping on Tuesday in which six expatriates were seized from a floating oil vessel.

On Wednesday night an unemployed Dutch oil worker was kidnapped from a bar in the southern town of Warri in the oil-rich Delta state.

Then early on Thursday three Korean executives and eight Filipino workers were seized from a construction site in Rivers state after a gunfight. In a third incident, gunmen kidnapped eight foreigners working on a floating storage vessel operated by ENI of Italy and Single Buoy Moorings, the Mystras, anchored 90 kilometres off the Rivers coast, only to announce hours later that they had released them.

Industry sources said the Mystras hostages, who they had previously said numbered six, were a Briton, two Croatians, one Australian, a Romanian, a Chilean and two Poles.—AFP