Two kidnapped in attack on Soco in eastern Congo

KINSHASA (Reuters) - At least two people, including a South African security official working with British oil firm Soco International, were kidnapped in an attack on a convoy in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.

Soco said on Tuesday that the security contractor was missing, while U.N. peacekeepers, who rescued a British national in the convoy, said a government soldier who had been escorting them in a convoy on Monday had also been captured.

The incident highlighted persistent insecurity in eastern Congo, where mining and oil companies are keen to access untapped resources but a number of local and foreign armed groups continue to operate.

"While we were undertaking our patrol we came across the British national in the middle of nowhere. We have also found one Congolese national, (Soco's) driver," Alexandre Essome, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo, said. "A South African national and one soldier are still missing."

Essome said Rwandan Hutu rebels, known as the FDLR, were suspected of involvement in the attack. But a spokesman for gunmen claiming to hold the South African told Reuters they were Congolese army deserters, not Rwandan rebels.

Speaking through a translator, Patient Akilimali said the South African had been captured for his own safety during a firefight but he was in good health and the group, which has no name, was ready to negotiate his release, so long as the army was not involved.

Akilimali said the Congolese soldier had escaped.

The incident took place on a stretch of road in Virunga National Park between Rutshuru and the Ugandan border, in Congo's North Kivu province, where the FDLR are active.

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Soco spokesman Antony Maris said earlier the firm's driver was missing after the attack but the company later issued a statement saying "one individual from the contract security company, while unharmed, is being held."

Soco has two oil interests in Congo. But it abandoned two exploration wells last year due to poor results and is also under pressure not to hunt for oil in parts of Block 5 in Congo's Albertine Graben as it overlaps with a national park.

Park officials said security was so bad that its vehicles had been banned from using the road for the last 10 days, even with an armed escort, and that the Soco team had entered the park illegally.

"We had three rangers on the gate but the military with them forced entry," Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park, told Reuters. Soco's Maris said he was unaware whether the group had entered the park but said they had been under strict instruction not to do so.

Soco and its partner Dominion Petroleum were handed Block 5 last June despite concerns from environmentalists that much of it lies inside Africa's oldest National Park. Last month the U.N. world heritage body UNESCO expressed concern over possible plans to allow mineral prospecting in Virunga.

Soco has said its presence should increase security in the park.

(Writing by David Lewis; editing by Mark Heinrich)