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Pirates have kidnapped 15 crew of a chemical tanker in the Gulf of Guinea after boarding the ship off the coast of Benin, the ship’s Dutch owners said on Friday.
The latest high seas piracy incident occurred on Thursday afternoon about 210 nautical miles (389 kilometers) south of Cotonou when pirates attacked the Davide B tanker, oil company De Poli said.
“Fifteen crew members have been taken away … while six other sailors from the ship are unharmed,” said the company, based in Barendrecht, just south of the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.
The six crew members “remain on board the ship,” added De Poli Shippingmanagement.
The Malta-registered Davide B was sailing from Riga to Lagos in Nigeria when the attack took place.
“Company management is now very concerned about the welfare of the missing crew,” company spokesperson Cor Radings said.
“Our main priority now is to establish contact with the missing crew in order to obtain their quickest and safest release,” he told AFP.
He could not give details of the missing crew members, but they are believed to be Russian, Ukrainian and Filipino.
The rest of the sailors were not injured on the ship which was “currently assisted by security personnel who arrived at the scene,” Radings said.
He added that there was no other information on the physical condition of the kidnapped sailors.
Kidnapping for ransom
Attacks by kidnapping ships for ransom have become common in the Gulf of Guinea stretching from Senegal to Angola, taking the southwest coast of Nigeria.
The perpetrators are usually Nigerian pirates.
The Gulf of Guinea accounted for more than 95% of all maritime abductions last year – 130 out of 135 cases, according to the International Maritime Bureau (BMI), which monitors safety at sea.
So far this year, 16 acts of piracy have already been committed in the region, according to maritime security consultancy Dryad Global.
Western shippers and military officials say pirates are increasingly targeting a ‘weak spot’ between Nigeria’s naval capability and the limited foreign presence beyond its waters, where gangs know a response is less likely .
The shippers say the pirates are now raiding further afield, and their violence and sophisticated tactics are prompting companies to demand a more robust foreign naval presence, like the mission to curb piracy in Somalia a decade ago.
Call to action
Since December, the Danish, Indian and Cypriot maritime lobbies have all called for action against piracy.
Denmark’s industry, with an average of 30 to 40 ships in the Gulf of Guinea each day, is pushing for the “coalition of the willing” to operate naval deterrence while helping local forces build capacity.
Earlier this month, global shipping giant Maersk called for a major naval mission to protect the busy but dangerous shipping lanes off the West African coast.
“In 2021, we should not have sailors who are afraid to sail anywhere because of piracy, this is not the era of piracy,” Aslak Ross, head of piracy, told AFP. maritime standards at the Danish giant.
strawberries-jhe / tgb
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