On November 20, unknown individuals kidnapped a Bulgarian national in Nigeria, the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The name of the kidnapped Bulgarian, as well as more details about the incident, have not being made public at the request of the relatives.

The kidnappers were asking for $4.2 million in ransom, a Nigerian intelligence services source was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. According to the same source, the Bulgarian was attacked in the city of Aba and was forcefully pulled out of the car he was travelling in.

The Bulgarian national is an engineer and is employed by a foreign company that is hired as a subcontractor in the country. It was company colleagues that tipped-off the Bulgarian embassy in Abuja about the kidnapping, Dnevnik daily said.

The Bulgarian mission in the Nigerian capital had urged the foreign ministry and the state authorities of Nigeria to undertake all the necessary actions for the quick solution of the case. The interim head of the Bulgarian mission in Bulgaria, Petar Konstantinov, told private broadcaster Darik Radio that the efforts to get in touch with the Bulgarian national were successful and that it could be confirmed that the Bulgarian was kidnapped for ransom.

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry has repeatedly advised Bulgarian citizens to refrain from traveling to Nigeria, Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry said.

In June, another Bulgarian national was kidnapped in Nigeria and was released a month later. Earlier this month, a Bulgarian woman and three French nationals, who were on a charity mission in central Somalia, were kidnapped. Their fate so far remains unknown.