Crew Kidnapping Marks Return of West Africa Pirate Attacks
The current kidnapping of 4 crew members from a cargo ship off the Niger Delta marks the return of assaults in West Africa and illustrates the uncertainty surrounding maritime safety within the area, in line with maritime safety agency Dryad Maritime.
Dryad studies that the incident occurred on Monday, October nineteenth when armed pirates attacked and boarded an unidentified refrigerated cargo ship underway off the Niger Delta. Once onboard, the pirates stole ship’s money, destroyed gear and kidnapped 4 crewmembers earlier than escaping. Authorities have been notified, however to date the no particulars referring to the identification of the attacked vessel or the placement of the kidnapped crewmembers, Dryad says.
“This is the first incident reported at sea off the Niger Delta in five months and has taken place 100 NM further west than the spate of kidnappings which took place earlier this year,” Dryad says in its evaluation of the report. “It comes at a time when the Nigerian Navy are conducting increased patrols of the approaches to the Bonny River, and these patrols may have forced this criminal gang to look into operating in this wider area of West Africa. This area has a recent history of maritime attacks with six reported cases of attacks on vessels, where 13 crewmembers were abducted for the purpose of ransom, in 2014 alone.”
Dryad provides that the incident marks a return to assaults for West Africa, an space that has skilled low ranges of maritime crime within the final three months. In Dryad’s current Maritime Crime Figures for Q3 2015 report, it was famous that the current discount in cases of maritime crime within the area was probably associated to the rise in Nigerian Naval actions, however that their efforts alone wouldn’t have the ability to successfully police the entire of West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea.
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