The Nigerian wife of kidnapped Maltese oil worker George Scerri is concerned for her husband's health, saying he had not been feeling well before he was abducted last week.
Speaking to the media in Warri, in Nigeria's delta state, Phina Scerri said the kidnappers have demanded one billion Nigerian naira - more than €5.5 million (Lm2.36 million) - from the families of the two kidnapped men, the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard reported.
Mr Scerri, 62, originally of Birkirkara, was kidnapped yesterday week together with Pakistani Mohammed Asif. The two work for oil company Lonestar Drilling and were seized in Omoku, outside the main oil city Port Harcourt, as they were driving to an oil rig.
Contact between Mr Scerri and the oil company was made last Tuesday.
During a news conference on Thursday, an emotional Mrs Scerri said her husband "was not really feeling fine prior to the kidnapping" and urged the Nigerian government to take action to get her husband freed. The oil company, she continued, should not be left alone in trying to ensure that the two workers are released.
"Please do not let these men die in the hands of their abductors," she pleaded.
Nigerian media said Mrs Scerri had managed to speak to her husband's kidnappers but did not know where the two men were being held.
Mr Scerri is believed to have left Malta some 22 years ago, although he has visited since.
According to Nigerian media, the two men were detained by unknown gunmen while they were travelling from their camp site to the oil rig, led to a waiting bus and then onto a speedboat and taken to an unknown destination.
Meanwhile, a Maltese delegation led by the Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Cecilia Attard Pirotta is expected to leave for Nigeria tomorrow or Monday.
The delegation is expected to include a handful of people, although the ministry is shying away from giving the exact number of people who will travel to Nigeria to try and negotiate Mr Scerri's release.
The delegation will be meeting with the Nigerian authorities, the Italian Embassy and the British High Commission in Nigeria.
A spokesman for the ministry said the government was not aware of the ransom request.