One day after the release of the British toddler snatched last Thursday, Nigerian militants kidnapped two expatriate oil workers, according to police officials.

Margaret Hill, the three-year-old daughter of a British expatriate and a Nigerian national, was returned to her parents Sunday, four days after having been kidnapped, unharmed and reportedly not in exchange for ransom.

Monday, two male employees of Monipolo Oil Service were abducted by armed men in speedboats in a village in Akwa Ibom State, in the Niger Delta, according to a spokesperson for the Nigerian police.

One of the kidnapped men is from Bulgaria, the other from Britain. Three other foreigners were reportedly snatched in the area the previous day.

Following the new kidnappings, the Nigerian government vowed once again to defuse the volatile situation in the Niger Delta, by stabilizing the crisis within the following six months.

“My main assignment in the first six months in the life of this administration is to stabilize the Niger Delta area,” Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan said upon receiving officials of Italian oil giant, Agip, led by its Chief Operations Officer, Stefano Cao.

“We will ensure that the security situation in the Niger Delta area is improved soon,” the vice-president said.

Jonathan said the kidnapping of 3-year-old Margaret Hill last Thursday in Port Harcourt was the work of one of the many groups operating in the Niger Delta.

These groups explain their kidnappings as a way of attracting attention to their current situation, where they consider they do not benefit enough from the region’s oil wealth.