A NORTH-EAST oil worker last night relived his terror at being kidnapped by heavily-armed militants who stormed his ship.

Hartlepool-born David Flounders was one of six men held hostage by machine gun wielding terrorists, who demanded a ransom for their release.

They were eventually freed unharmed, but it is not known whether the ransom was paid.

Last night, Mr Flounders told how the crew of his oil-processing tanker and a handful of Nigerian sailors fought a desperate rear- guard action to hold off 40 Nigerian rebels.

Despite a two-hour battle, the vessel was eventually stormed by the raiders, who used machine guns lashed to their speedboats.

The 56-year-old said he feared he would die after he was beaten, forced aboard a speedboat and taken on a 55km trip to shore, near Port Harcourt, on the West African coast. Mr Flounders was captured by the main rebel group in the region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).

The attack on the tanker Mystras, moored in the Okono oil field, was launched under the cover of darkness to avoid running into Nigerian government patrol boats.

Mr Flounders said: "It was a terrifying experience. I simply didn't know what was going to happen next."

The crew of the converted oil tanker battled to keep the rebels off, and razor wire on the anchor chain deterred them for a while.

They retreated a little and then took over one of the standby vessels - without a fight from the armed navy complement on board.

The attackers then rammed the tanker and used ladders to scale the side before hunting down any foreign nationals.

Mr Flounders, the ship's manager of oil production, and several other crewmen managed to hide in secure holding areas. But the rebels smashed through the walls to reach them. The six captives, including an Australian, two Croats, a Pole and a Romanian, were removed at gunpoint.

Mr Flounders said: "They took the four crew from the conference room and two of us from the radio room and left a demand.

"Our captors made us crawl over the ladder between the vessels, put us on the speedboats and then we spent four hours at sea without a compass being taken somewhere in the swamps.

"Once we had been captured, I felt relatively safe because Westerners are a valuable asset, but once we were heading to shore I became scared. The Nigerian patrol boats would not hesitate to fire at our speedboats and, at that point, that prospect was more terrifying than being a hostage.

"There were some negotiations before we were exchanged and transferred to Port Harcourt in a speedboat and handed over to the Rivers State Security Service. We were all unharmed, apart from the doctor, who fractured his ribs when he slipped in the speedboat."

Once he was released, the married father-of-two did not hesitate before returning to his badlydamaged ship.

He said: "My instinct said come back, my heart, and my children later on the phone, said go home.

I went with my instinct, I hoped my wife would understand." He is currently at home in Scotland, with his wife, Linda, considering whether to return to the Mystras full-time. Mr Flounders is hoping to visit his father, who lives in Hartlepool, in the next few days.

The rebel leader of Mend, Jomo Gbomo, who uses a pseudonym, claimed responsibility for the raid in the early hours of May 3. Speaking to the Al Jazeera news channel, he said: "All the hostages were released, we did not intend to take any more."