Another brazen assault off Nigeria as pirates board and kidnap two crew members from a containership underway.

The ship has been recognized because the Liberian-flagged CMA CGM Turquoise, a 4,360 TEU containership chartered by French delivery firm CMA CGM.

The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center confirmed the assault and kidnappings, reporting that on April 11 armed pirates boarded a container ship underway roughly 30 nautical miles southwest of Bayelsa Coast, Nigeria. Master raised the alarm, activated SSAS and all crew members, besides two crew, mustered within the citadel, the report mentioned. After about 12 hours, the crew emerged from the citadel and found that the 2 crew had been kidnapped.

All different crew are protected and the Nigerian navy boarded the vessel for investigations, the IMB report mentioned.

The supervisor of the vessel confirmed the incident in a press release supplied to gCaptain:

Dioryx Maritime Corporation verify that their managed vessel CMA CGM TURQUOISE was attacked by pirates off the coast of Nigeria at place 04 08.01’N 005 23.05’E on eleventh April 2016 at 19:56 hours UTC. We instantly mobilized our Crisis Response Team (CRT) which constantly tried to re-establish contact with the Master and crew. The CRT was additionally in fixed communication with the vessel’s Flag Administration and all of the Maritime Rescue Centres in addition to the native state authorities. Simultaneously, a line of communication and cooperation was established with the charterers CMA CGM who rendered their full help and help. The households of the crew members have been knowledgeable and are being stored constantly posted.

On twelfth April 2016 at 08:35 UTC communication with the Master was re-established. The crew members have been counted and all of them have been discovered to be protected apart from the Second Officer and the Electrician who have been reported as lacking. At this stage, their whereabouts just isn’t recognized and all the pieces is being completed, along with the suitable authorities, the relative international ministries, and specialist advisers, to establish the place they’re. Up till now, there was nothing to point that both of the lads has been injured or harmed.

The CMA CGM TURQUOISE just isn’t owned by CMA CGM, as has been erroneously reported in some media retailers, however CMA CMG are the truth is the charterers.

Dioryx is completely dedicated to reuniting the lacking crew members safely to their households.

The incident occurred on the identical day that pirates kidnapped six crew members from the tanker “Puli” greater than 100 miles from Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

While piracy and maritime crime has been on a decline in most areas of world, the Gulf of Guinea noticed a surge of pirate-related exercise within the first three months of 2016 with 23 crew members kidnapped for ransom, in accordance with the most recent figures from the maritime intelligence agency Dryad Maritime. 

“Kidnap of crew for ransom off the Niger Delta continues with the criminals growing in confidence and operating with impunity as they take crew members from ships in the region from under the noses of naval forces who have neither the resources nor the capability to routinely deter the criminals’ actions outside of their territorial waters. More optimistically, however, the complex and logistically difficult product tanker hijack has unsuccessfully reared its head, thanks to the actions of the Nigerian Navy who managed to thwart such an operation in February,” mentioned Ian Millan, Dryad’s Chief Operating Officer.