About ninety six hours after six crew members, including the captain were kidnapped from the Liberian-flagged container ship Demeter while the ship was sailing some 50 nautical miles south-west of Bonny, Nigeria, local and international security sources are yet to discover the whereabouts of the kidnapped crew.
Findings by Shipping Position Daily yesterday revealed that both the Nigerian Navy and the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) had no information on the whereabouts of the kidnapped sailors.
Also, as at press time, no ransom notes or demand have been forwarded by the pirates to the ship owner or its agents on how to secure the release of the missing crew.
Recall that the ship; Demeter "was attacked by pirates" at about 7:00 am (0600 GMT) on Saturday south of the Nigerian oil city, Port Harcourt.
The pirates boarded the ship and after an exchange of fire, they were able to kidnap six crew, including the master, chief officer, second officer, second engineer, bosun and cook.
Reports suggested the attack was carried out by eight pirates in a black speedboat. The Demeter had been travelling from the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo, to the Liberian capital Monrovia at the time.
The Liberia-flagged vessel is owned by German shipping firm the Peter Doehle Group.
The MTI Network, a crisis communications firm that deals with incidents in the shipping industry, said the attack happened as the ship entered the port of Onne.
"All of the 12 remaining seafarers of the Demeter are safe and unhurt and the vessel has proceeded to safe waters," it said in a statement.
The Peter Doehle group said it would not disclose the nationalities of the crew members taken "for security reasons".
Dryad Maritime Spokesperson; Ken Johnson disclosed that, the attack was carried out by the same group of pirates which tried to board a supply vessel a day earlier in the same region, but their attempt was unsuccessful.
The Panamax containership, built in 2006, has since been escorted to a safe anchorage.
Based on Dryad’s data, out of the 7 attacks conducted southwest of Bonny, this is the second successful attack. Furthermore, 55 crew members have been kidnapped off Nigerian coast so far this year.
Data from IMB ICC shows that 80 crew members were taken hostage in the first nine months of this year, three were injured and 2 killed in attacks on ships off Nigeria.
ICC’s latest report shows that a total of 20 reports against all vessel types were received for Nigeria, 16 of which occurred off the coast of Brass, Bonny and Bayelsa.
More attacks are likely to follow, as the monsoon season in the region is over setting the stage for more favorable conditions for the pirate groups to operate in.
There has been a tactical change employed by piracy groups off Nigeria over the last 18 months, as more attacks are taking place during daylight, Johnson explains. This is indicative of the pirate groups being more confident in their ability to attack ships at sea and get away with it without being caught by the Nigerian security forces.
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