By Randy Fabi
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's most prominent militant group released British hostage Robin Barry Hughes on Sunday after holding him in the creeks of the restive Niger Delta for seven months, officials said.
"The British hostage has been released and he is currently with government authorities in Port Harcourt," said Colonel Rabe Abubakar, spokesman for the military taskforce in the Niger Delta.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said earlier on Sunday it would free Hughes because of his health and age.
A Western diplomat, who wished not to be named, confirmed that Hughes was the person released late Sunday in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state in southeastern Nigeria.
Hughes and another Briton, Matthew John Maguire, have been held captive since September 9, an unusually long period for foreign hostages in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.
Hundreds of foreigners have been seized in the Niger Delta, home to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, since MEND launched a campaign of violence in early 2006 to push for what it considers to be a fairer share of the profits from crude oil extraction. Most have been freed unharmed after a few weeks.
MEND, responsible for attacks that have cut Nigeria's oil production by one fifth in recent years, said in February one of the two British hostages was "very ill" but did not name him.
The group on Sunday said Hughes would be returned to his employer, Lagos-based Hydrodive, a diving and marine services company for the oil sector. It added that no ransom was paid.
The two Britons were among more than 20 people taken when their oil supply vessel was hijacked in September.
MEND said a few weeks later it had "rescued" all of them from their original captors. It has since freed all the hostages except the Britons, who they said were being held as "leverage."
The militants threatened to keep the Britons until the Nigerian authorities free one of their leaders, Henry Okah, who is on trial for treason and gun-running.
A spokeswoman for the British High Commission in the capital Abuja called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of both hostages.
(Reporting by Randy Fabi; Editing by Jonathan Wright)
