MANILA, 4 May 2007 — The Philippine government scrapped plans to resume sending workers to Nigeria after gunmen abducted eight Filipinos in the African country's troubled Niger Delta yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo also ordered a “quick reassessment” of the country’s repatriation plan for workers in Iraq following the death of a Filipino worker in a rocket attack in Baghdad, a DFA official said.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said the Philippine Embassy in Nigeria had confirmed that eight Filipinos were among 21 people seized by gunmen in a spate of kidnappings yesterday. The victims were seized from the campsite of a Daewoo-operated power plant in Port Harcourt at around 1:40 a.m. yesterday Nigeria time, reports from Nigeria said.

The South Korean foreign ministry and the Korean company have confirmed the incident and said the workers were seized after a gunfight at their construction site.

Conejos said he received a phone call from Philippine vice consul to Nigeria, Randy Arquiza, who himself got the information from a Filipino Daewoo worker.

During the press conference, Arquiza called again and told Conejos that Daewoo decided to abandon the campsite and transfer to a safer place.

A team from the Philippine Embassy in Abuja was preparing to fly to Port Harcourt yesterday. The port is 10 hours away from the embassy by land.

No group came forward immediately to claim the kidnapping in Africa’s largest oil-producing nation.

Rich in oil reserves, the Niger Delta area has been at the center of a long confrontation between the government and the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Conejos said he would recommend to the labor secretary to let the deployment ban to Nigeria remain.

The Philippines imposed the ban earlier this year after 25 Filipino workers were abducted in separate incidents. All of the hostages were later freed unharmed.

President Arroyo eased the ban in March, allowing workers with unfinished contracts to return to Nigeria. Conejos could not say if the ban would be tightened once more.

He said there were originally 81 Filipinos working at the construction site, but 28 had returned to the Philippines because of security concerns.

The remaining 53 Filipinos were also supposed to return, but decided to stay after signs the situation in Nigeria was stabilizing, Conejos said.

Nigeria is one of the biggest employers of Filipino workers in Africa, with some 3,900 Filipinos employed there at the end of 2006.

Arroyo’s spokesman Ignacio Bunye, meanwhile, said the president was “saddened by the news” of the killing of a Filipino in Iraq and had asked the DFA to “ensure the immediate repatriation of the remains” of the worker.

The dead Filipino was among four workers at the US Embassy who were killed when a rocket slammed into Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone Wednesday, US Charge D’affaires Daniel Speckhard said the four fatalities were “citizens of the Philippines” and were “integral members of our embassy community.” But Conejos, in a press conference in Manila, said the Philippine Embassy in Baghdad, which is currently based in Amman, Jordan, clarified that only one Filipino was killed.

In Lebanon, almost 150 OFWs, including runaways and those jailed for minor offenses, will be repatriated from Lebanon after the Philippine reached an amnesty agreement of sorts with the Middle East country.

Conejos said some 110 are runaways staying in various halfway homes in Lebanon, 21 are detained for various offenses, and another 15 detained by the Lebanese immigration bureau.

Conejos said Lebanese immigration officers will accompany the OFWs to Manila.

Last year, at the height of the conflict between the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israeli forces, some 6,000 OFWs, mostly household workers, were evacuated and repatriated. (With reports by Inquirer News Service & Agencies)