By Gom Mirian
Pirates had in the last three weeks hijacked a motor tanker named MT Monjasa Reformer and MT SUCCESS-9 at various locations in the Gulf of Guinea, GoG.
Confirming the incidents on Sunday in Abuja, the Naval director of information, commodore A.O AYO-VAUGHAN told the Africa Health Report, AHR, that six crew members from the vessels were also abducted by the criminals.
AYO-VAUGHAN said: “While concerted efforts are being made to reduce piracy within the GoG to its lowest minimum, two unfortunate incidents were recorded within the GoG.
“The first incident which involved the hijacking of Motor Tanker (MT) MONJASA REFORMER occurred on 25 March 2023 at a location144 nautical mile (nm) West-SouthWest (WSW) of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo.
“The second incident involved the hijack of MT SUCCESS-9 about 306 nm SW of Abidjan Fairway Buoy (FWB), Cote d’Ivoire on 10 April 2023.”
According to him, following the spike in piracy incidents in the Gulf of Guinea, the Nigerian Navy (NN) has sustained the presence of her capital ships at sea and also directed operations bases to enhance efforts to dominate their Areas of Operations.
He noted that the NN vectored Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) GONGOLA to rendezvous MT MONJASA REFORMER in company of NNS KANO and a French Warship to escort the vessel to Lome, Togo.
He added that the NN has further employed her surveillance infrastructure to monitor shipping activities within the nation’s maritime environment and will continue to exploit intelligence to track activities of criminals in order to maintain the sanctity of the Nigerian Maritime Environment (NME).
