ROME/MOSCOW, March 10 (RIA Novosti) Seven foreign hostages have been killed by a Nigerian Islamist group, Western governments said on Sunday.

The hostages - nationals of Italy, Britain, Greece and Lebanon - were captured by the militant group Ansaru in a raid on a construction site in Nigeria’s northern state of Bauchi last month.

In a statement posted online on Saturday, the militant group said it had killed the captives.

Italian officials issued a statement on Sunday saying that the news about the deaths of all the hostages is believed to be true. Later Greece confirmed the death of its citizen too.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the British construction worker “is likely to have been killed at the hands of his captors, along with six other foreign nationals," BBC reported on Sunday.

The Ansaru militant group emerged only last year and reportedly has ties to Al-Qaeda.