Pirates abducted 15 crew members of a chemical tanker in the Gulf of Guinea after boarding the coast of Benin, the Dutch owners of the ship said on Friday.
The latest incident of piracy at sea occurred about 210 nautical miles (389 kilometers) south of Cotonou on Thursday afternoon when pirates attacked the chemical tanker Davide B, the De Poli tanker company said.
“Fifteen crew members were taken … while six other seafarers of the vessel were safe and unharmed,” said the company in Barendrecht, just south of the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.
The six crew members “remain aboard the ship,” De Poli Shippingmanagement added.
Maltese-registered Davide B was sailing from Riga to Lagos in Nigeria when the attack took place.
“The management of the company is now very concerned about the well-being of the missing crew,” said Cor Radings, company spokesman.
“Our main priority now is to establish contact with the missing crew to ensure their earliest and safest release,” he told AFP.
He could not give details about the missing crew members, but they are presumably Russian, Ukrainian and Filipino.
The rest of the sailors were unharmed on the ship “which was currently attended by security personnel who arrived at the scene,” Radings said.
He added that there was no further information on the physical condition of the kidnapped sailors.
Kidnapping for ransom –
Kidnapping attacks on cargo ships have become common in the Gulf of Guinea, which runs from Senegal to Angola, and enters the south coast of Nigeria.
The perpetrators are usually Nigerian pirates.
According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which monitors safety at sea, the Gulf of Guinea was responsible for more than 95 percent of all abductions at sea last year.
According to maritime safety advisory company Dryad Global, there have been 16 pirates in the area so far.
Manufacturers and Western military officials say pirates are increasingly occupying a ‘soft spot’ between Nigerian naval capacity and the limited foreign presence outside the waters, where gangs know the response is less likely.
Manufacturers say pirates are now invading, and their violence and sophisticated tactics are leading to firms’ calls for a more robust presence abroad, such as the mission to combat Somalia’s piracy a decade ago.
– Call to action –
Since December, the Danish, Indian and Cypriot ship portals have all called for action against piracy.
Denmark’s industry, with an average of 30 to 40 vessels in the Gulf of Guinea each day, is pushing for ‘coalition of the willing’ to operate a naval deterrent while helping local forces build capacity.
Earlier this month, the global Maersk shipping giant called for a major naval mission to protect the busy but dangerous shipping lanes off the West African coast.
“In 2021, we must not have seafarers who are afraid to sail everywhere because of piracy. This is not the time for piracy,” Aslak Ross, head of maritime standards at the Danish giant, told AFP.
burs-jhe / tgb