PiracyNews

10 Turkish Seafarers Kidnapped in Gulf of Guinea

By The Maritime Executive 2019-07-16 20:22:17

10 Turkish seafarers from the freighter Paksoy-1 were kidnapped by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea on Saturday evening, the Turkish foreign ministry said Tuesday. According to operator Kadioglu Denizcilik, 12 heavily-armed pirates boarded the vessel as she was under way on a voyage from Cameroon to the Ivory Coast. The crew took refuge in the citadel, but the attackers threatened to kill all of them if they did not come out. The pirates kidnapped 10 crewmembers and allowed the remaining...

Piracy Incidents Down Off Nigeria

By The Maritime Executive 2019-07-15 19:19:09

The number of hijackings and armed attacks on ships sailing off Nigeria has dropped according to new figures from the International Piracy Reporting Centre, IMB. For the Gulf of Guinea and off the coast of Nigeria, 21 pirate incidents were registered in the first half of 2019, a fall from 31 incidents in the same period of 2018. Globally, 78 cases of piracy and armed robbery against ships have been registered so far this year, compared to 107 incidents in...

ITF Calls for Release of Ukrainian Seafarer

By The Maritime Executive 2019-07-09 20:44:35

The ITF is calling on the Sri Lankan government to immediately release Ukrainian seafarer Captain Gennadiy Gavrylov. Gavrylov has been prevented from leaving Sri Lanka since his arrest on June 23, 2016 in connection with the police investigation relating to the Sri Lankan flagged vessel Avant Garde. The vessel was engaged in maritime security and piracy prevention and had firearms and ammunition stores on board. In October 2015, the vessel was awaiting clearance to enter port anchored outside Sri Lanka...

Five Indian Seafarers Released by Nigerian Pirates

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-30 20:39:36

Five Indian seafarers have been released after being kidnapped from the product tanker Apecus and taken to Bonny Island in Nigeria on April 19. The seafarers, Sudeep Chaudhary, Ankit Hooda, Chirag Yadav, Avinash Reddy and Moogu Ravi, have been taken to safety, says India's shipping minister Mansukh Mandaviya, and will be repatriated soon. Both the Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of External Affairs have worked to secure their release. The latest quarterly piracy report published by IMB shows that in...

IMO Warns Shipping Industry of Fake Piracy Reports

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-24 21:17:12

The International Maritime Organization warns that alerts being issued from the email account of the Regional Maritime Information Sharing Centre (REMISC) in Sana’a, Yemen (infoex@remisc.org) are not legitimate. Given the current situation in Yemen, which is in the midst of a civil war, the center has not been able to provide updated piracy incident information and has stopped its activities. IMO has supported REMISC since its establishment, but says that it has no oversight of its current operations. REMISC – together with the Mombasa and Dar es Salaam...

Ten Fishermen Kidnapped by Suspected Abu Sayyaf Militants

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-18 17:15:05

Ten gunmen kidnapped 10 fishermen on Tuesday off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia, an area known for pirate attacks linked to the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. Police believe that the abductees were taken to the island of Sitangkai in Tawi-Tawi, a province in the southern Philippines which is known as an Abu Sayyaf stronghold. Previous Abu Sayyaf abductions have followed a similar pattern. According to police accounts, gunmen in two speedboats approached two separate fishing vessels at about 0200 hours...

Asian Piracy Increased in May

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-15 18:22:45

In May 2019, six incidents of armed robbery against ships and one attempted incident of piracy were reported. This is a decrease in incidents for May last year (nine), but an increase compared to the last six months. Between November 2018 and April 2019, three to four incidents were reported each month. Of the seven incidents reported in May 2019, three incidents occurred on board ships at anchor/berth (at Kandla in India; and Dumai...

Report: Technology Shines Light on Human Rights Abuse

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-14 01:12:09

Oceana has published an investigative report it says demonstrates the power of technology to shine a light on possible illegal fishing and human rights abuses at sea. Oceana used the Global Fishing Watch mapping platform – a tool that empowers anyone in the world with an internet connection to investigate global fishing activity in near real-time, for free – to analyze the activities of vessels with histories of possible illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, forced labor or human trafficking....

Industry Wants Action on Piracy, Now!

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-10 18:21:24

Members of the shipping community, flag states and agencies from the Gulf of Guinea gathered at the Headquarters of the IMO on Friday 7 June, for a day-long symposium on Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea. The event, co-sponsored by BIMCO, IMCA, ICS, ITF and OCIMF, featured speakers from regional maritime agencies as well as shipping officials, academics and military staff. The shipping industry, along with seafarer groups, organized the event to highlight the continuing danger to seafarers operating...

Israel: Stowaway Tries to Set Ship on Fire

By The Maritime Executive 2019-06-09 19:00:15

The Israeli Navy has arrested a stowaway on board a container ship moored outside Haifa Port after the man tried to set the vessel on fire. The incident occurred on the MSC Canberra around 3 a.m. on Sunday and was attended to by the Shayetet 13 commando unit after the situation was assessed using drones. The stowaway was a Turkish citizen. He has now been handed over to the police. “The event is over,” said the Israel Navy said in...