Pirates attacked an oil tanker Tuesday off the coast of Togo, taking control of its bridge and kidnapping 24 sailors before escaping amid an exchange of gunfire with a naval patrol boat, an anti-piracy organization said.
Pirates attacked an oil tanker Tuesday off the coast of Togo, taking control of its bridge and kidnapping 24 sailors before escaping amid an exchange of gunfire with a naval patrol boat, an anti-piracy organization said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was injured in the attack on the Greek-owned oil tanker, which had been anchored about 17 nautical miles (19 miles) away from Lome, Togo’s capital. The pirates took control of the vessel quickly, though an alarm from the ship alerted the Togolese navy, said Noel Choong, an official with the International Maritime Bureau.
The navy boat trailed the tanker and sailors exchanged gunfire with the pirates before the tanker escaped, Choong said.
Yesterday’s attack is just the latest to target West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, which follows the continent’s southward curve from Liberia to Gabon. Over the last year, piracy there has escalated from low-level armed robberies to hijackings and cargo thefts. Last year, London-based Lloyd’s Market Association — an umbrella group of insurers — listed Nigeria, neighboring Benin and nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where two decades of war and anarchy have allowed piracy to flourish.
Pirates in West Africa have been more willing to use violence in their robberies, as they target the cargo, not the crew for ransom as is the case off Somalia. Analysts say many of the pirates come from Nigeria, where corrupt law enforcement allows criminality to thrive.
The attack on the Greek oil tanker comes about a week after a similar attack on another tanker in the region, Choong said. In that attack the pirates released the crew after stealing the oil onboard, he said.
“Judging the past attacks, they’ll take the vessel for several days, ransack it, take the cargo and leave the sailors,” Choong said.
Analysts believe the recent hijacking of tanker ships likely is the work of a single, sophisticated criminal gang with knowledge of the oil industry and oil tankers. Those involved in the hijackings may have gotten that experience in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta, where thieves tapping pipelines running through swamps steal hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day.
Yesterday’s attack came barely one week after pirates, operating from off Togolese coast, released a previously hijacked tanker. The British-managed oil tanker was hijacked off Togo in the Gulf of Guinea
The loaded tanker with 17 crew and a technician on board had been hijacked about three weeks ago about 20 nautical miles off the port of Lome in Togo, said Noel Choong, head of the IMB's piracy reporting centre based in Malaysia, AFP reports.
Pirates released the Panama-flagged vessel, which was transporting gas oil, 19 nautical miles off Lagos in Nigeria last Thursday, Choong said.
And reacting to the release last week, Choong had warned authorities and ships plying the area off western Africa to be vigilant.
"We urge authorities in the area to beef up patrols to stop this menace,'' he told AFP.”The pirates in this area are violent, we are warning ships to stay vigilant and maintain strict anti-piracy watches.'
Discussion about this post