Another Tanker Hijacked Off Ivory Coast
Original Source: gCaptain
A French-owned tanker with 17 crew members that went missing off Ivory Coast over the weekend has been confirmed by port officials from the port of Abidjan to have been hijacked.
MT Gascogne was in fact hijacked by pirates whilst in international waters.
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MT Gascogne Hijacked off Ivory Coast. Photo: Shipspotting.com
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Ivory Coast authorities said the Gascogne had been chartered by South Korean petroleum transporter SK Shipping, according to a Reuters report. The vessel had loaded 3,000 tonnes of diesel fuel in Abidjan on January 30 but had already off loaded a portion of its cargo when it was seized on Sunday, the report states.
The International Maritime Bureau and the tanker’s owners on Monday said the vessel had been hijacked by Nigerian pirates.
The tanker owner, SEA Tankers, confirmed via an emailed statement that communication was lost with its operated product tanker MT Gascogne off the Ivory Coast on Sunday morning.
“The owner lost contact on (February) 3rd. We believe it was hijacked with 17 crew on board,” added Noel Choong, head of the IMB’s piracy reports division based in Malaysia. The crew consists of seven sailors from Togo, four from Benin, two from Ivory Coast, two from Senegal and one each from China and South Korea, according to an Ivory Coast Transportation Ministry official said.
The MT Gascogne is a Luxemburg flagged vessel built in 2004.
In January, the Panamanian-flagged tanker, ITRI, was siezed by gunmen as the vessel was preparing to offload its cargo at the port of Abidjan. The vessel was released about a week later after the pirates made off with the ship’s cargo, about 5,000 tons of jet fuel.
Both these incidents and similar attacks and hijackings in 2012 have sparked fears that the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is not just limited to the waters off Nigeria.
During the period January 31 to February 4, three other piracy and robbery incidents have occurred in West Africa, as shown on the situational map below.
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Piracy Incidents off West Africa in 5 Days (Click to Enlarge)
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