Rome - Italy's president said on Monday he was worried about three Italian workers for the Italian energy company Eni SpA who are being held hostage in Nigeria but also said he was hopeful they would return home soon.
"We are very worried, we share the anxiety of the families of these technicians, and we understand the state of mind they find themselves in," President Giorgio Napolitano said in an interview with Italian RAI state TV.
The three Italians, along with a Lebanese man who works for ENI, were seized on December 7 from a southern Nigerian oil export terminal run by an Eni subsidiary.
The Italians have had some phone contact with their families in Italy, telling them they are well but are tired of waiting for their freedom, and pressing for more efforts to win their release, according to relatives.
Hostage-takings in Nigeria - Africa's largest crude oil producer - have increased along with tension between international oil firms and poor local communities.
Napolitano said he had faith in efforts by the Italian foreign ministry to gain the hostages' freedom and that he hoped "they soon return home," the Italian news agency ANSA quoted the president as saying in the interview.
Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni held talks on December 27 with the Nigerian president in Lagos about the four workers being held hostage. - Sapa-AP