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British man killed in Nigeria after being held hostage British man killed in Nigeria after being held hostage
(about 3 hours later)
A British man held hostage in Nigeria has been killed while three others have returned home safely after the west African country’s authorities negotiated their release. A British man kidnapped while carrying out missionary work and helping to set up an eye care clinic in a remote part of Nigeria has been killed.
The circumstances surrounding Ian Squire’s death, three weeks after his abduction, were not immediately clear. Ian Squire, 56, was one of four British charity workers kidnapped from the rural community of Enekorogha in the early hours of 13 October. An optician from Shepperton in Surrey, he had been working with the Christian health charity New Foundations to train local people to carry out sight tests and dispense prescription spectacles.
It is understood that Squire and fellow Christian charity workers David and Shirley Donovan and Alanna Carson were working as missionaries when they were abducted from their accommodation in the southern Delta state in the early hours of 13 October. He had developed a solar-powered, portable lens-grinding machine for the clinic, which is located in an area without mains electricity.
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the families of four British people who were abducted on 13 October in Nigeria, one of whom was tragically killed. Squire’s death was confirmed by the UK Foreign Office (FCO) as it announced the release of his three compatriots: the New Foundations founder, David Donovan, a GP from Cambridge; Donovan’s wife, Shirley; and Alanna Carson, an optometrist from Leven, Fife.
The circumstances surrounding Squire’s death were not immediately clear. An FCO spokesman said: “We are supporting the families of four British people who were abducted on 13 October in Nigeria, one of whom was tragically killed.
“This has clearly been a traumatic time for all concerned, and our staff will continue to do all we can to support the families. We are grateful to the Nigerian authorities, and are unable to comment given the ongoing nature of their investigations.”“This has clearly been a traumatic time for all concerned, and our staff will continue to do all we can to support the families. We are grateful to the Nigerian authorities, and are unable to comment given the ongoing nature of their investigations.”
In a statement, the families of the four hostages said: “Alanna, Ian, David and Shirley were kidnapped in Nigeria some three weeks ago. We are grateful for the support received by the British high commission and help from the Nigerian authorities in negotiating their release.In a statement, the families of the four hostages said: “Alanna, Ian, David and Shirley were kidnapped in Nigeria some three weeks ago. We are grateful for the support received by the British high commission and help from the Nigerian authorities in negotiating their release.
“We are delighted and relieved that Alanna, David and Shirley have returned home safely. Our thoughts are now with the family and friends of Ian as we come to terms with his sad death. “We are delighted and relieved that Alanna, David and Shirley have returned home safely. Our thoughts are now with the family and friends of Ian as we come to terms with his sad death.”
“This has been a traumatic time for our loved ones who were kidnapped and for their families and friends here in the UK. We would therefore ask that the media respect our privacy as we come to terms with the news. We will not be making any further comment.” Squire, who set up his own charity, Mission for Vision, in 2003, had been travelling to Nigeria since 2013, in a joint effort with New Foundations. The establishment of the Enekorogha eye clinic was listed as an achievement in New Foundations’ 2016 Charity Commission filing.
Squire, 56, an optician from Shepperton in Surrey, had previously visited Nigeria three times to carry out work for his self-founded charity, Mission for Vision, which makes annual trips to remote regions of Africa to carry out “comprehensive eyecare programmes”. “Workers’ accommodation was remodelled to provide a bespoke vision clinic with a small lens-grinding laboratory established,” the filing said. “Training continued with three workers and Mission for Vision CEO Ian Squire again visited with a team to trial a bespoke lens grinder and upscale the refractive and lens making skills of the small eye team.”
Squire had been travelling to Nigeria since 2013, when he joined forces with the Donovans’ New Foundations, a Christian health charity. During that first mission it set up an eye clinic with facilities for sight testing, dispensing and spectacle glazing. Mission for Vision’s latest filing said it was in the process of training three healthcare workers in the Delta. The charity had also carried out work in Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Carson, also a devout Christian, whose social media pages are peppered with Bible quotes, worked as an optometrist at Specsavers in Leven, Fife. Carson has been reunited with her family in Northern Ireland, where she is recovering at her parents’ home in Ballymoney, County Antrim. She worked at a Specsavers in Fife, Scotland, but had been in Nigeria’s Delta region to help remove cataracts from local people’s eyes.
Adrian McCann, the store director, said: “We are of course hugely relieved to hear that our colleague has been safely released and is back home with her family.” Kidnapping is a lucrative business in Nigeria, which has one of the highest kidnap rates in the world. Delta state is rich in oil and almost as rich in groups trying to control it, who argue that a bigger share of Nigeria’s oil wealth should be pumped back into the region.
David Donovan, a GP from Cambridge, founded New Foundations in 2003. It aimed to train, support and pay community healthcare workers “in regions of extreme need and lack of infrastructure”, with a focus on the Niger Delta. Until 2009, the main armed group was the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which kidnapped oil workers and blew up pipelines. The group then signed an amnesty deal with the government, whereby members received generous salaries and vocational training.
According to a filing on the Charity Commission website, the charity is “expressively evangelical underpinning all its activities by declaring the gospel of salvation exclusively through Jesus Christ. All the work of the charity is to declare the love of God, without prejudice, treatment and ministering to all without precondition or discrimination.” The Niger Delta Avengers, one of the militant groups operating in the area, said on Friday that a ceasefire negotiated last year was over.
Among the achievements noted in the 2016 filing was the setting up of an eye clinic in Enekorogha, the town where the group were abducted by gunmen last month. However, the group’s attacks have previously targeted oil and gas installations and there is no suggestion that they were behind the kidnap of the missionaries.
The filing said: “Training continued with three workers and Mission for Vision CEO Ian Squire again visited with a team to trial a bespoke lens grinder and upscale the refractive and lens-making skills of the small eye team.”