By akademiotoelektronik, 24/05/2022

Piracy: six sailors including a Pole removed from the Gulf of Guinea

By Le Figaro with AFP published

Several crew members, including a Pole, were removed during the attack on a container carrier in the Gulf of Guinea, said on Wednesday 15 December the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Danish Navy had said this week that hackers had removed six people in total on board the Greek ship Tonsberg, in international waters off the island of Bioko (Equatorial Guinea).

de Guinea: The fight against piracy begins to bear fruit

the Polish ministry said it "received information concerning the removal of crew members of the Tonsberg ship in the Gulf of Guinea and confirms that One of the people kidnapped is a Polish citizen ”. He also indicated in a press release being in contact with diplomats from "other countries" as well as with the owner of the ship to coordinate the efforts to find them.

almost the only piracy zone in the World

According to the Danish Navy, one of its frigates, Esbern Snare, who has patrolled in the area since November, has hunted the pirates who have left Tonsberg on a small boat with the hostages to edge. A frigate helicopter followed them remotely so as not to put the hostages in danger, but he had to stop when the pirates reached Nigerian waters, the Mission of the Danes prohibiting them from entering their territorial waters. In addition to the six hostages, an injured person was rescued aboard the Danish frigate to be treated there and 14 other crew members were safe and still on board Tonsberg, the Danish news agency Ritzau a Marine spokesperson. According to Marine Traffic, the Tonsberg is currently off the coast of Benin.

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Enjoyed mainly by Nigerian pirates, ship attacks to remove their crews and exchanges for ransoms have become very frequent in recent years in the Gulf of Guinea, which extends along 5,700 km of coast West Africa. The waters of this Gulf, which twenty countries bordered and which extends from Senegal to Angola, are rich in hydrocarbons and fishery resources. This zone has become the world epicenter of criminal maritime activities, concentrating some 99% of sailor kidnappings by pirates in 2020, according to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (ONUDC) and the SEAS Stable Research Institute Tuesday.