The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), which demands greater autonomy for Africa's top oil province, had seized the employees of oil company Agip, a unit of Eni, in a raid on an oil export terminal on 7 December.
Heavily armed militants dropped the Italians Francesco Arena and Cosma Russo with a small group of journalists at an oil company boat yard on the outskirts of Port Harcourt.
They
