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Sunday 10 March 2013

Nigeria hostage deaths.Italy, UK, Greece confirm

The uk, Italy and Greece upon Sunday confirmed that hostages from their countries were among seven construction workers reported killed in Nigeria above the weekend.

"This was the act of cold-blooded killing, which I condemn inside strongest terms, " British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement announcing that any British construction worker was one of several dead.

Nigerian militant group Ansar al-Muslimeen claimed responsibility to the February kidnappings of your seven construction workers through an office in northeastern Nigeria. Your group, widely known as Ansaru, released images of a lot of the bodies Saturday.

Italy's Foreign Ministry said Sunday who's appeared the report from the deaths "is founded. " Greece said certainly one of its citizens was one of several dead, and that his captors "at no stage either communicated or expressed demands to the release of the hostages. "

Ansaru blamed the deaths with a joint Nigerian-British military operation intended to free the hostages. Without directly addressing the maintain, Hague said, "Responsibility with this tragic outcome rests squarely using the terrorists. "

"I am grateful towards the Nigerian Government for his or her unstinting help and co-operation, " he said. "We are utterly determined to do business with them to hold the perpetrators with this heinous act to bank account, and to combat your terrorism which so blights the lives of people in Northern Nigeria and inside wider region. "

Some of the other hostages were through Lebanon, which had not commented within the reports Sunday.

All seven hostages were seized through an office of Lebanese-based construction firm Setraco in northeastern Nigeria upon February 18. In claiming responsibility to the attack, Ansaru said it taken them captive because of "transgression and atrocities" towards Islam in Afghanistan, Mali and also other locations.

Setraco's Nigerian subsidiary is associated with many major road construction projects in northern Nigeria.

Oughout. S. officials say Ansaru is usually an offshoot of the Islamist militant collection Boko Haram, which Nigerian authorities say is behind a recently available rash of killings and kidnappings in the country. Boko Haram -- whose name means "Western training is sacrilege" -- has killed greater than 2, 800 people within an escalating campaign to demand strict Islamic law upon largely Muslim northern Nigeria, as outlined by Human Rights Watch.

Ansaru has previously claimed responsibility to the December kidnapping of a French citizen nearby the border with Niger and with an attack on a prison in Abuja in Late.