We cover piracy, armed robbery at sea, IUU fishing, maritime cyber security and maritime security issues.
By Yinka Ibukun
West African states’ failure to coordinate their response to piracy off their coastline is the main reason attacks are persisting, Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe said.
Seaborne assailants boarded two vessels off the coast of Togo and neighboring Benin earlier this month.
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Source: bloomberg.com
LOME (Reuters) – Pirates attacked a Greek oil tanker off the coast of Togo in the early hours of Monday and fled after taking four crew members as hostages, the West African nation’s navy said, two days after a similar attack in the waters of neighbouring Benin.
Of the missing crew members, two are Filipinos, one is Greek and one is Georgian, the navy said in a statement. One security guard was also shot and wounded in the attack, it said. “Monday, 4th of November 2019, around 0300, the tanker boat Elka Aristotle […] was attacked around 18 kilometres (11 miles) from the port of Lome by armed individuals,” the statement said.
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Source: euronews.com
The Gulf of Guinea has recorded its third ship hijacking this month, with a chemical tanker captured off Togo, as the region continues to see a spike in maritime insecurity.
According to the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting centre, armed pirates boarded and hijacked an anchored chemical tanker at Lome Anchorage on 12 May, holding its crew hostage.
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Source: defenceweb.co.za
Media in Togo report that a group of eight pirates attacked a ship off the country on the night of Saturday 11th.
The Togolese minister of Security and Civil Protection, Yark Damehame, named the ship involved in as the G-DONA 1, a Togolese vessel with a crew of seven. The report states that eight armed pirates in a ‘canoe’ approached and boarded the vessel. When the Navy operations room observed the vessel’s erratic movements and were unable to contact her, they deployed a naval team to investigate.
They boarded the vessel and arrested eight suspected pirates (six Nigerian and two Togolese citizens), who they handed over to the Maritime Gendarmerie for further investigation. The G-DONA 1 was escorted to Lomé.
By Aditi James
On July 16, 2013, I was out to dinner with my family, celebrating my uncle’s birthday. Usually, Sunil, my husband, is the kind of guy who never forgets anyone’s birthday — even though he was away at sea with the merchant navy. But he never sent congratulations. I didn’t worry too much at the time. I thought he probably had weak network or was just busy. Two days later, I learned that his ship, Ocean Centurion, had been attacked.
The pirates — they’re now thought to have been a Nigerian gang — kicked open Sunil’s cabin door, blindfolded and beat him. When Sunil, the captain, and his crew came to, the ship had been ransacked. The pirates were gone, but the ship was now drifting aimlessly at sea. Using nautical charts, Sunil guided the ship to the nearest port, Lome in Togo. But there, officials (who couldn’t speak English) made Sunil and two of his fellow sailors sign statements in French (a language they didn’t know). And then: Sunil and the sailors were jailed on suspicion of colluding with the pirates. It turned out that I was his only hope.
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Source: ozy.com
Pirates have reportedly kidnapped three Romanian sailors aboard a tanker ship off Lome, Togo.
This was after sea robbers attempted to board a container ship owned by Singapore’s Pacific International Lines while the vessel was sailing on the high sea around Nigeria’s Niger Delta region on February 21.
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Source: punchng.com
Maritime Security News Note:
There has been a sharp spike in piracy and maritime crime in the Gulf of Guinea over the last three weeks. This is potentially a political message from President Buhari’s opponents and organised crime groups in the Niger Delta. We have seen three crew kidnapped here as well as eight crew from Chinese fishing vessels in recent weeks, representing a worrying increase in risk for merchant vessels visiting the region.
Maritime Security News 