Norway says ‘unlikely’ to find survivors in Algeria

 OSLO, Jan 25, 2013 (AFP)

Norway, which still has five nationals missing after last week’s attack against an Algerian gas plant, said Friday for the first time that it was “unlikely” they would be found alive.

“From what we understand, the Algerian authorities continue to search on and around the plant but it’s unlikely that any survivors will be found,” a spokeswoman for the Norwegian foreign ministry, Veslemoey Lothe Salvesen, said.

Unlike countries like Britain, the Scandinavian country does not use the term “presumed dead.”

But with no news on the fate of the five missing Norwegians, hope of finding them alive is fading and Oslo has sent a team of forensic experts to Algeria to help identify the dead.

All five were working for oil and gas company Statoil, one of the operators of the In Amenas gas plant.

According to preliminary estimates by the Algerian authorities, 37 foreign hostages and 29 kidnappers died in the Islamist attack against the gas field and in the military operation that followed.