A Chinese tuna fishing vessel and a tanker carrying fuel for France’s Total were hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, according to Equatorial Guinea and a maritime security company said Wednesday.
The Gulf of Guinea, which stretches from Senegal in the north to Angola in the south, has seen frequent incidents of pirates hijacking ships and kidnapping crews for ransom in recent years, and the sea has become the center of rampant piracy in the world after an international effort to combat Somali pirates gradually declined.
The Gabonese flagged Chinese tuna fishing vessel “Lianpeng Fishing 809” was hijacked Sunday by armed men in a speedboat after leaving the Gabonese port of Gentil, with a total of 14 crew members from China, Indonesia and Gabon on board, said Dryad Globa, a company specializing in maritime security, on its website. On Wednesday, the fishing vessel was found about 110 kilometers from Nigeria’s Bonny Island, an area allegedly used by pirates as a “base” for attacks on tankers in recent days, including Tuesday’s hijacking of the Maria E, a tanker transporting fuel for Darwin Shipping Co. was hijacked, the tanker was attacked by pirates off the west coast of Sao Tome and Principe, according to Dryad Globa, said that by Wednesday, all the crew of the tanker had taken refuge in a closed safe haven equipped on board, but the company did not announce the number of crew members and their nationalities.
Officials in Equatorial Guinea also confirmed the news of the tanker’s hijacking on Tuesday, with the country’s energy minister saying at a press conference that reports had been received from France’s Total that the tanker carrying oil for the company had been hijacked by pirates and that the hijacking was “still ongoing. Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea expects a shortage of gasoline supplies due to the hijacking of the tanker and has implemented strict rationing of gasoline at Total stations across the country, which will continue until the arrival of the next tanker.
According to the latest report of the International Maritime Bureau (BIM), the number of pirate attacks on global maritime vessels rose by 20 percent in 2020 due to a record increase in pirate kidnappings in the Gulf of Guinea. A total of 135 crew members were kidnapped worldwide last year, 130 of whom were hijacked during piracy in the Gulf of Guinea waters. At the same Time, the pirates’ actions have changed from attacking stolen ships to conducting more profitable kidnappings of crew members for ransom.
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