Steve Agbota with agency report
Ten Turkish sailors kidnapped by suspected Niger Delta militants off the coast of Nigeria were last Friday released after spending almost a month in the pirates’ custody.
The 10 Turkish sailors traveling aboard the Ivory Coast-bound Turkish ship, Paksoy-1, were intercepted by pirates on July 16, 2019.
However, agency report did not provide details about who had kidnapped the men or if a ransom was paid for the sailor’s release.
Their container ship had been sailing from Cameroon to Ivory Coast when the pirates boarded the ship in the Gulf of Guinea.
A local official shared information that the ship was operated by Kadioglu Maritime and had 18 crew on board when it was attacked by pirates suspected to be from Nigeria’s volatile Delta region.
Turkish state media channel TRT mentioned that the released sailors were in good health but gave no further details.
Numan Paksoy, from the ship’s management company Kadıoglu Maritime, said that “about 12 pirates with heavy guns attacked the boat”. The crew members hid in a safe room but when the “pirates threatened to burn the ship and kill all of them”, they surrendered to them. Paksoy said that the attackers then picked 10 sailors and let the other eight go. After the pirates’ interception, the Turkish vessel docked at the port of Tema in Ghana.
According to Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT, four Turkish nationals were also kidnapped in Nigeria’s Kwara State on July 19, but were rescued on July 29.
International Maritime Bureau data shows that the Gulf of Guinea is the most dangerous sea zone in the world for piracy, with 73 per cent of all sea kidnappings and 92 per cent of hostage-takings occurring therein off the coasts of Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin, and Cameroon, according to British Broadcasting Corporation.