• Attack two vessels, Kidnapped Captains, Chief Officers, Others
Barely two weeks after sea robbers of Nigerian descent unleashed attacks on fishing trawlers on Cameroun and Calabar waters a similar scenario was re-enacted last week in Bonny Fairway Buoy where sea robbers hijacked two ships and kidnapped six crew members.
Although, security sources refused to give the identities of the kidnapped sailors or the two ships that were attacked, our correspondent confirmed none-the-less that at least six sailors, including: the captains of the two ships, the chief engineers and two others. Our source however confirmed that the two ships are MT Orion and MV Apollonian. The latter is billed for Onne port.
Shipping Position Weekly had reported exclusively in its Volume 3, Number 38 Edition that “sea robbers belonging to the dreaded Bakassi Freedom Fighters attacked on two Nigerian fishing trawlers in Cross Rivers State, killing one sailor and maiming five others”.
Sources had given the identity of the dead sailor as Etim Benjamin, while the identities of the ill-fated fishing vessels were given as M .F Olokun 4and M. F Kulack 7. Both vessels belong to a Lagos-based fishing company identified as Barnaly Fisheries.
But sources confirmed that the latest attacks occurred on Wednesday last week and that the Navy was alerted by security officials of oil servicing company; Halliburton.
However, only one of the attacks was reported to International maritime Bureau. In response to a mail by Shipping Position Weekly, the IMB gave details of the first attack as having taken place at “1636 UTC, Position: 04:05N – 006:45E, 2.5 nm off Bonny River Fairway Buoy”.
The global piracy reporting agency also informed Shipping Position Weekly that “seven pirates armed with machine guns boarded a landing craft vessel underway. Master and C/O remained on the bridge and all the other crewmembers were instructed to lock themselves in a safe compartment. After a few hours when the crew came out of hiding, they found the bridge unmanned. The pirates had kidnapped the Master and C/O to an unknown location. C/E informed the owners and managers. Agents reported the incident to the local authorities”.
The second attack was not reported to IMB, a confirmation of the bureau’s longstanding allegation that most of the attacks on Nigerian waters were never reported to it.
Shipping Position Weekly also recalls that the director general, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had in response to a question on the IMB allegation recently declared that the agency was not under nay obligation to report attacks on ships to IMB, but to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
However, our correspondent was told that the two ships may have been involved in illegal bunkering and that they were probably attacked by sea robbers who knew that they were carrying out illegal business.
The development however coincided with a renewed call by the Navy that ships calling at Nigerian ports should stop berthing at night in order to avoid being attacked.
The advice was given by the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Eastern Naval Command, Rear Admiral Benjamin Acholonu in Calabar, Cross Rivers State at the end of his tour of naval facilities and oil companies within his Command and barely 24 hours after the Bonny Fairway Buoy incident.
According to him, the Navy, through the Nigerian Ports Authority, had repeatedly warned ships to avoid berthing at night but some ship captains have refused to heed the warning.
‘’The ships themselves are part of their problems. The (Naval) bases have through the NPA instructed that ships should not be entering unduly in the night? Why can’t they enter the harbour in the daytime? Some of them prefer to enter the harbour in the night and thereby expose themselves to undue danger.
“If you have any problem as a vessel that you cannot enter the harbour by daytime, then you stay at high sea. If you stay very close to the harbour, then their (sea robbers) boats can get at you, but if you stay at high sea their boats can’t get to you. It is one of the ways they should help the Services to check the robbers’’, he pointed out.
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