COPENHAGEN: Six crew members abducted by pirates in April from a Danish oil tanker off Congo have been rescued from Nigeria, the vessel’s owner said Monday.
The Liberian-flagged Monjasa Reformer had sixteen sailors on board when the pirates attacked it on 25 March. Despite being owned by a Danish firm, none of the crew were Danish.
When the 135-metre-long vessel was found by the French navy the following week near the coast of Sao Tome and Principe in the Guinea Gulf, the remaining crew said 6 of their colleagues had been abducted.
Monjasa said that all 6 crew members who were abducted from the oil tanker, Monjasa Reformer, are now rescued from an undisclosed location in Nigeria.
It did not specify if they paid a ransom.
Anders Ostergaard, Monjasa’s CEO, said that the crew members are in relatively good health given the tough circumstances they have been under in the last more than 5 weeks.
Ostergaard said that they have all been receiving medical checkups and are now being repatriated to their home states to reunite with their families.
Contact lost with oil tanker
Monjasa had earlier said that it had lost contact with the crew members after pirates boarded the tanker.
Pirates have long been a danger in the Gulf of Guinea — a major shipping line stretching 5,700 kilometres (km) from Senegal to Angola, with Nigerian groups carrying out most attacks.
But since 2021, tanker owners say pirates have been attacking farther out in international waters.
Their attacks and sophisticated tactics prompted pleas from vessel owners for a more robust foreign naval presence such as the mission to end attacks from Somali pirates a decade ago.
Many of the raids in recent years have been carried out by Nigerian gangs using speed boats from their hideouts in the Delta region.
