SAFETY
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MV YENAGOA OCEAN: Hijacked and Released
MV YENAGOA OCEAN: Able Seaman Usman Ochoche Agida Tells His Story Of Abandonment, Poverty and…..
You remember the story of the Nigerian flagged vessel MV Yenagoa Ocean that was hijacked by Somali pirates fro more that one year. The ship was released in 2009, after some ransom was been paid by her owners. Usman Ochoche Agida was an Able Seaman (or Deck Worker) on board the ill-fated vessel. He tells his story after the ship was released.
He looks forlorn, his flowing garb hanging loosely on his emaciated frame. Home, for Mr. Usman Ochoche Agida and his wife and six children, is a ramshackle apartment with worn- out curtains in Odogunyan area of Ikorodu, Lagos.
The only luxury in the apartment is an old television set as well as a radio covered with dust. Hanging on loose ropes outside the apartment were some tattered children’s clothes belonging to Agida’s kids.
For Agida, putting food on the table for his family is a great challenge. The family’s daily survival depends on the benevolence of sympathizers and church members.
Even as Agida strives to cope with his predicament, seeing his children go to bed without food is gradually stripping him of his pride. And for the past two years, none of the kids has been inside a classroom.
“Most nights, they go to bed hungry. The last one who is just two years and four months is always inconsolable,” he said.
It is not only hunger that stares the Agida family in the face. A quit notice issued by their landlord already expired on March 30.
“The landlord has really tried because I owe him nine months rent but I wish he could give us more time,” he pleaded.
Agida is currently passing through tumultuous times. But then, it was not like that in the past.
“I was doing very well as an Able Seaman (deck worker) with West Coast Shipping Line Limited,” he told the reporter. “My family was very comfortable and family members flocked my house daily. None of them comes here again.”
He was among the crew whose ship was hijacked on the Indian Ocean in 2008 by Somali pirates. He would have met an untimely death in the hands of the pirates but for the benevolence of fate.
Agida’s problems actually started in 2008 when he was contracted by ESL Integrated Services Limited, owned by Mr. George Onokpite. He was to join a crew that would bring in Onokpite’s newly acquired ship, MV Yenagoa Ocean, from Dubai.
Before the sailors embarked on the journey, the owner of the vessel agreed to pay them 100 dollars daily as allowance, he disclosed.
The journey which was meant to last for just two weeks ended ten months later with a devastating experience.
According to him, their ordeal started when members of the crew were refused entry at the Dubai International Airport. They were informed that what they had on them were fake visas.
“We were shocked because the visa was given to us by the Logistics Manager of ESL Integrated Services Ltd, Emmanuel Bassey and Administration Manager, Terence Dafiaghor.
“The Dubai authorities detained us for 24 hours before we were released by an Egyptian lawyer hired by the owner of the vessel. To avoid deportation, he took us to the Oman Republic for us to return to Dubai as tourists instead of businessmen,” he said.
After staying in the hotel for a week, they were taken aboard MV Yenagoa Ocean on June 17, 2008. They finally set sail for Nigeria on July 21without enough fuel.
According to him, the ship’s surveyor instructed that they should set sail with about 350, 000 tonnes of fuel. But they were forced to leave the port on the owners’ instruction with just 173, 000 tonnes. This action nearly cost them their lives as the vessel ran out of fuel in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The captain, Graham Egbegi, then contacted the Oman Ports Authority for help but was told that the ship was 500 Nautical Miles from that port and so couldn’t be helped. They were, however, given a number to send an SOS to in Bosaso, Somalia. But when contacted, the owner of the ship allegedly opposed the idea.
On August 4, 2008, while sailing for Somalia, they were captured by Somali pirates. Their hijackers demanded a ransom of two million dollars, saying the Nigerian government was “very rich”. They threatened to execute the sailors if their demands were not met.
Agida recalled that following their capture, the Nigerian Internal Affairs office, the Nigerian Ambassador to Kenya and Seychelles, Chijioke Wigwe as well as the ship’s owner, Mr. George Onokpite, were all contacted.
Within the days that followed, the captured sailors suffered indescribable starvation and all forms of deprivations in the hands of the pirates.
“It was quite traumatic to wake up every day to face arms like bazookas, rocket launchers and other high calibre weapons pointing at us. Every morning, we had this terrible feeling that it could be our last,” he said.
The man who is presently having problems with his sight disclosed that for 90 days, they were locked in their dark cabin and not allowed on deck.
The beleaguered sailors were also stripped of every piece of clothing. They had to cut their bed sheets into fragments to sew underwear.
“We almost starved to death,” he said. “Sometimes, we didn’t eat for three days. Bathing was also a luxury.” He noted that the pirates threatened several times to execute them as the ransom was not forthcoming. In fact, for six months, the ship owner reportedly did not communicate with the pirates. Rather than pay the ransom, the ship owner allegedly contracted a rival pirate gang to hijack the ship from the original pirates. After that failed attack, the pirates were said to have been thoroughly vexed. They allegedly threatened to sink the ship after releasing the sailors.
*Courtesy: Shiptalk
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OZAY 5: Attack Brings Nigeria To Limelight Again
STRICTLY PERSONAL
The Attack On MV Ozay 5: Yet Another Case Of Robbery, Not Piracy
On the night of March 25, 2010, dare devil sea robbers attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria, injuring three crew members in the process.
The news was first broken (expectedly) by the Turkey’s state-owned news agency Anatolian which reported that “eight to 10 pirates with automatic weapons boarded the Ozay 5 late Thursday. They robbed the crew of money and cell phones, but fled after the ship began making distress calls”.
Quoting the Turkish Maritime Undersecretariat of Maritime Affairs, the newswire disclosed that: “The ship’s cargo was not damaged in the attack” and that “two of the injured crew were Turkish and one was Nigerian”.
“The pirates seized all cash money, mobile telephones and other valuable items in the ship. The pirates and the crew members began fighting with each other when a crew member pushed the alarm button of the ship. “The sea pirates left the ship after spraying bullets on the personnel saloon. There were no major injuries or mass property damage in the ship. The injured crew members have been taken to a hospital in Lagos. Their injuries were not life threatening”, the Turkish Maritime Affairs Agency had said.
No doubt, piracy or any form of attack on ships is a hot story any day, but the speed with which foreign and Nigerian media rushed to conclude that by the attack on MV Ozay 5, Nigeria is in the news again for piracy.
What happened in the night of March 25, 2010 can not be classified as piracy.
According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), piracy is limited to the “high seas” and attacks that took place “outside the jurisdiction of any state.”
Members of the global shipping community are in unison about the fact that there is a very big difference between the tactics and kinds of organizations that commit sea robbery and the tactics and weapons used by pirates that board ships while the vessel is underway.
But, whether they are pirates or sea robbers, majority of the so-called pirates that rob ships at anchorage are a bunch of criminals who have had experiences about sea faring or had been or are currently engaged as dockworkers or fishermen.
Unlike sea robbers, pirates, whose mode of operation is to attack ships while underway, are usually better organized, better equipped and trained.
Certainly, those who attacked Ozay 5 recently; seizing cash, mobile telephones, and who did not touch any of the cargo, but chickened out by taking to heir heels upon hearing an alarm, can not pass for pirates.
The International Maritime Bureau has been unfair to Nigeria in its assessment of attacks on ships. From its perspective, every attack is piracy. It has even gone ahead to warn that shipping in Tema, Ghana, Benin and in the Lagos and Bonny River areas of Nigeria, is risky.
Its director, Mr Pottengal Mukundan had alleged in 2009 that “there were 13 reported and 24 unreported attacks in the second quarter of 2009, mainly against vessels supporting the oil industry.”
For a fact, Nigeria’s coasts are becoming notorious for sea robbery (not piracy) by militants and unemployed youths from the vast riverine communities. Sea robbery or piracy, the fact is that Nigerian Government will need to be more alive to its responsibility in the defence of its maritime business.
ANTI – PIRACY OPERATIONS IN NIGERIA: The Assessment Of A Member Of The Us Navy
After embarking on a joint patrol with the Nigerian Navy (which deployed its patrol boat; Burutu), a member of the US Navy who undertook the joint patrol alongside the Nigerian naval personnel writes that, as it is presently, the Nigerian Navy is incapable of repelling any piracy attack.
The gleaming Nigerian naval patrol boat heaved across the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean in search of pirates.
Beyond the crisp white hull, however, crew members in cheap sandals manned machine guns whose ammunition had rusted in the chambers. And a computer-guided gun on the bow had no ammo at all.
This is the first line of defence against growing piracy off West Africa.
The patrol boat Burutu, which recently participated in a training exercise with the U.S. military, is part of a force that patrols Nigeria’s 530 miles (853 kilometres) of coastline. But the navy appears overmatched as attacks on shipping continue and grow more violent, and militants resume strikes on oil platforms and pipelines.
The coastline of Africa’s most populous country is a target-rich environment. Barges and other vessels belonging to energy companies crowd the waters off the Niger Delta, one of America’s top sources of crude oil. At night off the megacity of Lagos, lights from scores of cargo ships twinkle like an archipelago as crews wait for weeks to unload at the city’s busy, mismanaged port.
About 10 pirates on Thursday night boarded a Turkish-flagged freighter waiting to unload its cargo. They stole money, mobile telephones and computer gear, Turkish maritime authorities said. The crew apparently fought back and sent an alarm before the pirates clubbed them with Kalashnikov rifles and stabbed the captain. Two Turkish sailors and a Nigerian worker were injured.
“The Western African coast, especially around Nigeria, is a high risk area for piracy,” said Cyrus Mody, a manager at the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy worldwide. “It is also one of the most violent places.”
The bureau reported 28 attacks off Nigeria during 2009 and believes at least another 30 pirate attacks went unreported, either due to companies worried about having higher insurance premiums or concerns about advertising their security weaknesses, Mody said.
Attacks have occurred elsewhere along the Gulf of Guinea that Nigeria shares with more than a half-dozen other countries. On Saturday, armed pirates off Cameroon’s coast near Nigeria kidnapped two sailors from a Ghanaian-flagged ship for ransom. In another attack in November near neighboring Benin by suspected Nigerian pirates, a Ukrainian sailor was shot dead. In other boardings, pirates stabbed and beat sailors, Mody said.
The former British protectorate’s navy includes several large ocean-cruising craft and smaller patrol boats that can travel up the Niger River in the delta to look for those attacking oil pipelines and stealing crude oil. The U.S. imported more than 1 million barrels of Nigerian crude oil a day in December, making Nigeria America’s third-biggest foreign source that month, so the U.S. has an interest in seeing the Nigerian navy improve.
The U.S. Navy has been training naval forces of West African nations to fight piracy, even though much of the world’s attention remains focused on Somali pirates operating off East Africa.
Commodore David Nabaida, a spokesman for the Nigerian navy, said the navy will continue to patrol off of the Niger Delta and Lagos. He said it is difficult to protect the more than 200 ships anchored in Lagos and questioned whether freighters were actually being robbed.
“Maybe ships do deals and sell their products, then say they were attacked by pirates so they can divert attention from whatever crooked deals they have done,” he said.
In a country permeated by corruption, it’s perhaps not unusual that the commodore harbors such suspicions.
The corruption that permeates every level of government in Nigeria may hamper the anti-piracy efforts. A retired Navy rear admiral was recently indicted for allegedly embezzling government funds. Nigeria’s elites often plunder the oil money that should be running and building up the country and some politicians even allegedly hire criminals and militants to help them rig elections.
The effectiveness of the Nigerian navy is also in question.
During the recent training exercise, the Burutu was motoring near the American frigate Samuel B. Roberts. The U.S. ship sounded a warning through its loudspeaker that the Nigerian vessel was on a collision course.
The warning continued even as the Nigerian patrol boat scraped along the side of the U.S. warship, creating an ear-piercing metallic squeal. One U.S. sailor cursed and threw a blue hard hat at the Nigerian sailors, who merely stared.
Maritime Terror Alert in India
Security has been tightened in the high seas following intelligence reports that Pakistan-based terror groups may target some oil wells and Single Point Mooring (SPM) facilities where ships offload crude oil for transportation to the mainland through pipes.
Central security agencies have asked the Navy and the Coast Guard to increase patrolling in the seas and pursue any suspicious or unidentified ship or vessel moving in Indian waters, official sources said.
The moves comes in the wake of reports of central security agencies as well as Western intelligence that Pakistan-based terror outfits especially Lashker-e-Taiba may try and target oil wells located in the high seas and may also try and hit the SPMs, mini ports located 70 to 80 nautical miles (130 to 150 km) in deep seas.
It was found that the country has dozens of such unattended SPMs where ships carrying crude oil offload it and it is sent to mainland using pipes or smaller ships.
The concerned authorities have been now asked to carry out a proper listing of SPMs and hand over the list to Coast Guards so that security is provided to them. Each SPM is built at an estimated cost of Rs 600-700 crore in all those areas where ships cannot anchor at the coast because of shallow waters.
Navy and Coast Guards have, meanwhile, intensified patrolling around the oil wells located in the high seas besides asking oil companies to keep a tight vigil.
After the audacious 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the Union government had designated the Navy as the central authority responsible for the country’s overall maritime security and it will be assisted by the Coast Guard, State marine police and central agencies.
Piracy: The World Rethinks Private Security Guards On Board Merchant Vessel
The events in the Gulf of Aden on March 24th, in which private security guards shot and killed a pirate during the attempted hijacking of the Panamanian-registered cargo vessel, MV Almezaan, bring the private security industry into sharp focus.
Despite the sterling efforts of the EU NAVFOR task force in the area, the hugely important Gulf of Aden corridor remains a dangerous place for ships, with no one type of vessel singled out for attack by pirates. On Monday 22nd March, the crew of an Iranian fishing boat were rescued by chance by the Spanish frigate, Navarro, after their boat was hijacked and the crew left without food, water or fuel.
It is apparent that Somali pirates are now not only willing to attack virtually any vessel, they are also travelling well outside local waters to do so. On Tuesday 23rd, Somali pirates attacked the Malta-flagged MV Frigia, some 1,000 miles east of Somalia’s Haradhere. This new tactic will further strain the resources of the EU NAVFOR.
While details surrounding the attack on the Almezaan are slim, intelligence sources suggest that pirates initially attacked the vessel on Monday night/Tuesday morning in skiffs. The security team on board the Almezaan fired warning shots over the heads of the pirates and repelled the assault. However, the pirates returned shortly thereafter and attacked the Almezaan again. The resulting gun battle left one pirate dead.
The crew of the Almezaan raised the alarm and the EU NAVFOR frigate Navarra then interceded, capturing the six remaining pirates and their mother ship, which they later destroyed. It is not known at this stage which security company had supplied the team aboard the Almezaan, nor their specific training or orders.
The deployment of weapons aboard merchant craft is a thorny issue, as is the very presence of private security teams. Nigel Booker, director of Neptune Maritime Security, a company which supplies security teams to shipping companies globally, said that the death of the pirate was regrettable, but hardly unexpected. “It really is surprising that it hasn’t happened before now. Shipping companies have been hiring protective details for a while, but very few of those teams have any real experience of maritime security. Our company, for example, was founded by former members of the Special Boat Service, so they’re all experts in their field. The situation we currently have in the Gulf of Aden is that many of the teams on board vessels are from traditional land-based military backgrounds and don’t necessarily have an understanding of International Maritime Law or even the rules of Maritime engagement. Firearms should really be an absolute last resort in any situation, especially at sea.”
The latest development in the Almezaan shooting came on Thursday 25th March, when it emerged that none of the crew aboard the cargo vessel was willing to press charges against the pirates and, with some dismay, the Captain of the Navarro announced that the pirates would be released. With no apparent legal recourse against the pirates, we wait to find out if the security team involved in the shooting will face charges under International Maritime Law. In the meantime, piracy continues virtually unabated in one of the world’s busiest and most important shipping channels.
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