PIRATES who seized 10 oil workers last week have demanded that the Cameroon government enter direct talks about Bakassi peninsula ownership before the hostages can be freed. In a call to the French newspaper Le Monde, Bakassi Freedom Fighters commander Ebi Dari said on Saturday: "The government of Cameroon has not contacted us yet. If they do not, we will hold the hostages for a very long time= 2E” He added that the group would meet any attempt to rescue the hostages with force: "If Cameroon comes for that, it will end badly for the hostages. They will all die." The workers were taken from Bourbon Sagitta, an oil service boat owned by France’s Bourbon, at midnight on Thursday, while transferring oil barrels on the Cameroon/Nigeria maritime border. The vessel had been contracted by Total, the French oil group. The hostages included seven French nationals, two Cameroonians and a Tunisian. The Bakassi peninsula is an oil-rich region recently transferred from Nigeria to Cameroon after a protracted border dispute. Egypt meantime urged Arab countries to co-ordinate efforts against piracy. A meeting now looks likely to be held this month in Cairo, conducted by Yemen and Egypt, which fears that revenues from ship transits of the Suez Canal will be threatened.
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