LAGOS (AFP) – Gunmen have kidnapped an eight-month-old baby girl for ransom in the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt, a police spokeswoman told AFP Friday.

"The gunmen went into the house in Port Harcourt (the state capital) at about 9:30 pm (2030 GMT) on Thursday (and) seized the child ostensibly for a ransom," Rita Abbey, of Rivers State police, said.

"They went to the house to rob. They must have picked up the little girl when they could not get enough from the robbery," she said on telephone.

The police were yet to establish contact with the gunmen after they fled, leaving their phone number in the house, she said.

It was not clear if the girl's parents were at the house during the attack.

Nigerian gunmen on January 18 freed three British expatriate workers and their Colombian colleague abducted a week earlier week in the country's first major abduction in Niger Delta in six months.

The four -- contract workers for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell -- were abducted in an ambush as they travelled to work from Port Harcourt to the Shell-operated Afam power plant, the police said.

Their police escort was shot dead by the assailants.

That incident was the first in southern Nigeria since July last year, following a lull in the wake of a government amnesty which saw thousands of militants lay down their arms.

Armed groups claiming to seek a fairer share of oil revenue for locals have since 2006 staged attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta, playing havoc with crude output and international oil prices.

Hundreds of foreign and local oil workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta since 2006. Many have been released unharmed, others after ransom payments.

Last year Shell said 133 of its workers and contractors had been kidnapped between 2006 and 2008.

In October, the most sophisticated of the groups, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), declared an open-ended ceasefire to give dialogue with authorities a chance.

But its called off the truce last Sunday over what it called slow progress made on the implementation of the amnesty programme, due to President Yar'Adua's illness.

Yar'Adua has been hospitalised in Saudi Arabia since November 23 for a heart problem




Fellow Nigerians!, where is Nigeria heading to now, The country is becoming a hell on earth for her people even no security for our children any longer.Can you imagine this' kidnapping an 8 month old baby' .I am getting sick of all these. It is high time we wake up we the YOUTH of this country, I never pray for any kind of war among citiizens BUT we need drastic action on the so caledl 'Leaders of no future' The President has been missing for more than 2 months . A democratic country for that matter, This is no democracy, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!