Five Polish sailors aboard the ‘Szafir’ cargo ship have been kidnapped from a vessel off the Nigerian coast in an alleged piracy attack while on route to the Nigerian Port of Onee from the Port of Antwerp, Belgium, according to the Telegraph.
Witold Waszczykowski, Foreign Minister for Poland, said: “During the night there was an attack on a Polish ship when a group unknown to us boarded the vessel.
“As a result five of the 16 on board have been kidnapped. There was no blood and no sign that anybody was injured during the kidnapping.”
A woman believed to be the wife of a sailor aboard the ship said: “When the attackers boarded the ship more than a dozen sailors barricaded themselves in the engine-room and turned off the engines. They couldn’t get in so broke into the cabins instead and kidnapped the people they found.”
Marek Grobarczyk, Minister for Maritime Affairs, said that pirates were believed to be the cause of the attack.
The engine room was used by most of the crew to avoid being captured.
Piracy is one of many global threats to the port and shipping industry and will be a key topic discussed by Philip Cane, Associate Managing Consultants at NYA International during Transec at the Olympia in London on December 2, 2015.
Maritime piracy has boomed in 2015, with around US$16 billion in financial losses recorded annually.
