Four people were killed and three others kidnapped in an attack on a US convoy in southeastern Nigeria on Tuesday. "There was no U.S. citizen in the convoy," said Ikenga Tochukwu, spokesman for the Nigerian police. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed in Washington that an American convoy consisting of several vehicles had been attacked. The U.S. State Department also confirmed the attack.
According to Tochukwu, the gunmen killed two police officers and two employees of the American consulate before setting fire to their vehicle. They also kidnapped two police officers and a driver. The attack was carried out in the district of Ogbaru in the state of Anambra. On Tuesday evening, a rescue and liberation operation began.
Several separatist groups are active in southeastern Nigeria and have recently stepped up their attacks, frequently attacking police and government buildings. The authorities blame the group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) or its armed wing ESN for the attacks. The IPOB, which fights for an independent state for the Igbo ethnic group, rejects the allegations.
In 1967, the unilateral proclamation of an independent Republic of Biafra by renegade army officers from the Igbo ethnic group had triggered a 30-month civil war. More than a million people died in the course of the conflict, most of them Igbos.