Pirates attacked an oil tanker off the coast of west Africa, killing a Ukrainian officer before escaping with the contents of the ship’s safe, the ship’s owners and Benin’s navy commander said Tuesday.

Commander Maxime Ahoyo said the officer on the Monrovia-flagged Cancale
Star was shot dead when he confronted the pirates after they boarded
the vessel in darkness 18 nautical miles (33 kilometres) off the coast
of Benin.

The tanker’s Latvian captain, Jaroslavs Semenovics, said around six or seven pirates had approached the tanker in a speed boat.

“They came on deck, pointed a pistol to the head of one of the sailors, marched him to the cabin,” Semenovics told AFP.

“They asked me to open the safe and they collected all the cash,” he added. He did not say how much was stolen.

The 230-metre (750-foot) Cancale Star was carrying 89,000 cubic metres of crude from Nigeria’s Niger Delta, the captain said.

The tanker’s owners Chemikalien Seetransport said in a statement issued
from Germany that the vessel’s chief officer, or second in command,
“has tragically lost his life in a piracy attack off the coast of Benin
in the early hours of November 24″.

“It is not the chief engineer but the chief officer of the vessel,”
said Chemikalien’s spokesman Cor Radings, contradicting Ahoyo who had
earlier identified the Ukrainian officer as the chief engineer.

Medics aboard the vessel said four other crew members were wounded in the attack, one seriously.

Some of the crew managed to overpower one of the pirates and handed him
over to police for questioning. The captured pirate said he was from a
Nigerian border town.

The multinational crew of 24 includes Russians, Filipinos, Lithuanians
and Ukranians, Ahoyo said, speaking on board the Cauris, a Beninese
navy boat which went to the assistance of the tanker and managed to
dock alongside it.

Piracy in oil-rich west African waters is on the rise, according to the
International Maritime Bureau, with more than 100 cases last year.

Most attacks occur while ships are at anchor or close to the shore,
unlike in east Africa, where Somali pirates have netted millions of
dollars in ransoms in exchange for the release of ships captured
hundreds of miles from the coast.

The IMB’s Live Piracy Report has highlighted the risk to shipping in
Tema, Ghana, and in the Lagos and Bonny River areas of Nigeria,
immediately east of Benin.

It said that pirates have attacked and robbed vessels and kidnapped
crews along the coast and rivers, anchorages, ports and surrounding
waters.

Officials voiced fears earlier this year that west African pirates would copy the tactics of Somali gangs.

From January to September of this year, the International Maritime
Organisation reported 160 acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia,
including 34 hijacked vessels and more than 450 people made hostage.

The world’s naval powers last year started deploying warships in the
Gulf of Aden in an attempt to curb attacks by ransom-hunting pirates
that were seen as a threat to one of the globe’s most important
maritime trade routes.

Pirate groups have since shifted their focus to the wider Indian Ocean,
a huge area much more difficult to patrol, and started venturing as far
as the Seychelles and beyond.

Source: AFP

Search to find what you want

• Inter manager expresses grief over the death of seafarers

    InterManager, the international trade association for the shipmanagement industry, has expressed its extreme anger and deep sorrow after a seafarer died at the hands of pirates.

• Pan-Arab Task Force would fight piracy scourge

    A pan-Arab task force under Saudi Arabian command could soon join the other forces in fighting piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Somali Basin, according to a top European naval officer, Reuters reported. “The pan-Arab task force will join others in the near future and the first command will

• No report of injuries or losses of the two abducted ships: IMF Officer

    There was no report about any injuries and casualties so far on the two ships kidnapped by Somali pirates on Monday, an officer of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said here on Wednesday.

• Six Somali pirates of the investigation

    Penal Prosecution in Aden has begun investigations with six Somali pirates on charges of pricy and attempt to kidnap a Yemeni boat. Judicial source told the state-run 26sep.net that the Prosecution has received files of seven Somalis accused of piracy, one of them is still at large. The sources pointed

• China To Naval Base Round Somalia

    As the threat of piracy continues. And as Somali pirates continue with their awkward trade to kidnap foreign ships, a Chinese Admiral has revealed China’s proposal to establish a naval base in the region in its commitment to thwart piracy and finally end this tragedy in the gulf of Eden.

• Jamaica-flagged ship escapes pirates from Yemen: Fifth Fleet

    A Jamaican-flagged ship managed to deter a piracy attack off the coast of Yemen, the US navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said on Monday. A Jamaican-flagged ship managed to deter a piracy attack off the coast of Yemen, the US navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said on Monday. The Miltiades motor vessel

• India deploys warship in the Indian Ocean to the fight against piracy

    Augmenting its anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, India on Monday deployed an additional naval ship in the sea brigand-infested waters to carry out patrol and surveillance. “The Indian Navy has deployed INS Savitri, an Offshore Patrol Vessel with a Chetak helicopter and

• Pirates beat Navy

    A group of Somali pirates has been captured after attacking a French navy ship by mistake, apparently thinking it was a harmless cargo vessel. French military spokesman Admiral Christophe Prazuck said the pirates attacked in skiffs late at night some 500km (310 miles) off the Somali coast. But the command and supply ship,

• Piracy in \ u0026 # 39, 09 double-IMB

    Piracy attacks off the Somali coast are set to double this year as lucrative ransoms and difficulties policing vast swathes of ocean lure increasing numbers of pirates onto the seas, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Tuesday. The Kuala Lumpur-based centre said there have been 200 attacks off the

• Spanish boat escapes Somalian pirates after firefight

    Somali pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Spanish fishing vessel, which responded with gunfire, during a hijack attempt in the Indian Ocean, European Union naval forces said Thursday.

• France seizes Somali u0026quot 35

    The French navy has captured 35 piracy suspects off Somalia’s coast – hailing it as the most successful mission since EU operations began in 2008. French officials said four mother ships and six smaller boats had been seized in four operations since last Friday. EU forces used helicopters and fired

• East Africa: Pirates Looted SH45 billion last year – report

    Ship owners paid Somali pirates over Sh45 billion ($60 million) in ransom money last year, a report from a regional anti-piracy watchdog has revealed.

• Somali pirates to kill Syrian captain, ship rescued

    Somali pirates boarded a Panama-flagged ship heading for Mogadishu on Thursday and killed its Syrian captain after he refused to turn the vessel away from the port, officials said. “The pirates killed the captain after he refused to turn the ship. Usually, we send police when commercial ships draw near the

• Stronger legislation against piracy in Somalia needed: UN

    UN Security Council members on Wednesday called for intensified efforts to fight piracy off the Somali coast and criticised the practice of paying ransom. The members said during a session on piracy and the situation in Somalia that the coordinated fight by navies from several countries failed to deter pirates.

• The defense of ships against piracy

    Strange though it might appear, piracy is a real problem in the 21st century, with regular attacks on shipping in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, and off West Africa. An earlier piracy “hotspot” has been the Malacca Strait and other parts of South East Asia and the China