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Pirates Attack Vessel in Gulf of Guinea, 10 Foreign Crew Kidnapped
By DAPO OLAWUNI
An oil tanker; ALPINE PENELOPE has been attacked in the Gulf of Guinea en-route Lagos, while 10 out of 24 multinational crew were kidnapped. Crew includes Georgian, Filipino and Ukrainian nationalities.
As at 2pm today, the ship is under way after drifting in S direction for some 10 hours or more, steaming towards Lagos, with no security or Navy officials nearby.
According to Dryad Global report, an officer on watch identified two armed men on board, and no further details regarding the nature of weapons or actions have since been received.
Understood SSAS was activated, and after that, communications were lost.
No AIS yet, and as in the case with MAERSK TEMA container ship which was attacked on February 14th, no navy or security boats seen in the vicinity yet.
“Merchant ship was attacked at 0110 UTC Feb 20 in vicinity 05 10N 002 05E, S of Cotonou. Most probably, tanker ALPINE PENELOPE was attacked, her latest AIS timed 0130 UTC, no signal since then”
“She’s en route from Netherlands to Lagos, should be loaded. No security/navy boats/ships nearby”
“IMRRA, assessed this tanker as having a GREEN risk rating, with a specific risk rating of 28% (16-MAR-18), compared to the fleet average 36%”
